Faulkenberry v. Springs Mills, Inc., 20764

• Decision Date: 13 September 1978
• Docket Number: No. 20764,20764
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: Barbara P. FAULKENBERRY, Respondent, v. SPRINGS MILLS, INC., Appellant.

Page 445

247 S.E.2d 445

271 S.C. 377

Barbara P. FAULKENBERRY, Respondent, v. SPRINGS MILLS, INC., Appellant.

No. 20764.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

Sept. 13, 1978.

Robert R. Carpenter, of Roddey, Sumwalt & Carpenter, Rock Hill, for appellant.

H. Jackson Gregory, of Holler, Gregory & McKellar, Columbia, for respondent.

LEWIS, Chief Justice.

Respondent worked for appellant Springs Mills, Inc. After the second of two separate reports from a fellow employee to supervisory personnel that respondent was seen secreting cloth in her pocketbook, she was delayed by her supervisors and security guards for about fifteen or twenty minutes at the mill gatehouse, as she left work, for the purpose of investigating whether she was attempting to take and appropriate property of appellant, her employer. She refused to open her pocketbook at the request of her supervisors so as to determine whether it contained property of appellant and, after some discussion and continued refusal to open her pocketbook to reveal its contents, she left without hindrance. She subsequently instituted this action for false imprisonment, based upon the foregoing delay at the mill gatehouse for investigative purposes.

While other questions are raised by appellant, the dispositive issue, preserved under timely motions for directed verdict and judgment notwithstanding the verdict, is whether there was any evidence to sustain the finding of false imprisonment.

We stated in Thomas v. Colonial Stores, 236 S.C. 95, 113 S.E.2d 337, that the essence of the tort of false imprisonment consists in depriving the plaintiff of his or her liberty without lawful justification.

Since we conclude that the actions of appellant's agents were done with legal justification we need not determine whether the delay or restraint of respondent at the gatehouse as she left work constituted the restraint required to make out false imprisonment. See Westbrook v. Hutchison, 195 S.C. 101, 10 S.E.2d 145. If appellant was legally justified in restraining respondent, she is not entitled to recover. The following from 32 Am.Jur.2d, False Imprisonment, Section 74, soundly states the applicable principles:

Ordinarily the owner of property, in the exercise of his inherent right to protect it, is justified in restraining another who seeks to interfere with or injure it where the restraint or detention is reasonable in time and manner. Thus, where a person has reasonable grounds to believe that another is taking his property, he is justified in detaining the suspect for a reasonable length of time for the purpose of making an investigation in a reasonable manner. In such cases, probable cause is a defense, even though the injury which is about to be inflicted constitutes only a misdemeanor, for it is the existence of a reasonable ground to suppose that one's property is in danger which gives right to the protection. It follows that the owner of a store or other premises has a right to detain a customer or patron, for a reasonable time for a reasonable investigation, whom he has reasonable grounds to believe has not paid for what he has received, or is attempting to take goods without payment . . . Moreover, the right to detain the person suspected of wrongdoing exists only during commission of the offense, and does not arise where the...