Lerner Shops of Nev., Inc. v. Marin

• Decision Date: 02 February 1967
• Docket Number: No. 5152,5152
• Citation: 83 Nev. 75,423 P.2d 398
• Parties: LERNER SHOPS OF NEVADA, INC., a Nevada corporation, Appellant, v. Josephine Peggy MARIN, Respondent.
• Court: Nevada Supreme Court

Page 398

423 P.2d 398

83 Nev. 75

LERNER SHOPS OF NEVADA, INC., a Nevada corporation, Appellant, v. Josephine Peggy MARIN, Respondent.

No. 5152.

Supreme Court of Nevada.

Feb. 2, 1967.

Bradley & Drendel, Reno, Jacob L. Rothstein, San Francisco, Cal., for appellant.

Irma Lang, Stateline, for respondent.

OPINION

ZENOFF, Justice.

This is an appeal by Lerner Shops of Nevada, Inc., from a jury verdict in favor of the plaintiff, Josephine Peggy Marin. Damages in the sum of $12,500 were awarded on Peggy's claim for false imprisonment and assault based upon her alleged detention by the manager of Lerner's store in Reno.

On November 23, 1964, Peggy, who was then twenty years old, went shopping with her sister, Marcellina, in Reno. In Lerner's store Marcellina made a down payment on a coat. Then she and Peggy went to a part of the store where ski jackets were sold. Peggy was wearing a ski jacket which she had purchased approximately a month earlier in J. C. Penney's. Peggy handed Marcellina her own ski jacket to hold and then tried on other ski jackets from the store rack. Marcellina, while waiting, reversed the hood on Peggy's jacket making it a different color than when they had entered Lerner's. After trying on the jackets Peggy then put on her own jacket which was now different in appearance, and the two left the store. Lerner's at the time had in their rack ski jackets similar to Peggy's.

An employee of Lerner's, Solomon Harris, saw Peggy leave wearing a ski jacket which he believed he had seen her take off the store rack. He ascertained that it had not been sold to her and advised the store manager, Mr. Mandlestam. Together they left the store in search of Peggy and Marcellina and found them in Leed's shoe department next door to Lerner's. Mr. Mandlestam and Harris approached Peggy and her sister and Mandlestam asked Peggy if she had been in Lerner's store, to which she answered in the affirmative. He then asked both girls to accompany him back to Lerner's. Mr. Mandlestam and Harris walked back to Lerner's followed by Peggy and Marcellina. The girls returned without protest.

It appears undisputed that Mandlestam is a soft spoken person, not overpowering in physical appearance. He did not threaten force or violence in any sense, nor was an arrest attempted. Back at Lerner's the manager asked Peggy to remove her jacket, which she did without protest. He looked at the jacket and Peggy told him that she bought it at Penney's. While inspecting the jacket he also looked at Peggy's wallet in the pocket of the coat before returning it to plaintiff who thereafter left the store with her sister.

Peggy commenced an action for false imprisonment, among other claims, alleging that because of the shock and humiliation occasioned by her detention, she has suffered nausea and headaches which have continued to the time of trial. In its answer Lerner's asserted the defense of NRS 598.030, ¹ Nevada's shop lifting law. The statute is designed to give relief to shop keepers who have reason to believe that their merchandise is being pilfered, by allowing them to reasonably detain a suspect without subjecting themselves to civil liability.

The trial court refused to instruct the jury on the existence of NRS 598.030, thus, not allowing that defense. Lerner's principal ground for appeal is based on this denial. Other alleged errors were asserted, but we are of the opinion that the refusal to allow the instruction was error so prejudicial that the action must be reversed and remanded for a new trial.

1. False imprisonment is a restraint of one's liberty without any sufficient cause therefor. Zayre of Virginia, Inc. v. Gowdy, 207 Va. 47, 147 S.E.2d 710 (1966). As defined in NRS 200.460 false imprisonment (as a crime) is an unlawful violation of the personal liberty of another, and consists in confinement or detention without sufficient legal authority. It is generally acknowledged that submission to the mere verbal direction of another, unaccompanied by force or threats of any character, does not constitute false imprisonment. Grayson Variety Store, Inc. v. Shaffer, 402 S.W.2d 424 (Ky.1966).

There is a split of authority on whether or not in the absence of statute probable cause (or reasonable grounds for detention) is a defense in an action for false imprisonment. The sounder position is that where a person has reasonable grounds to believe that another is stealing his property he is justified in detaining him for a reasonable time in order to investigate. Collyer v. S. H. Kress Co., 5 Cal.2d 175, 54 P.2d 20 (1936); Bettolo v. Safeway Stores, 11 Cal.App.2d 430, 54 P.2d 24 (1936).

In view of the existence of NRS 598.030, we do not know from the record why the trial court refused to instruct the jury in accordance with the statute. The legislation is consistent with the desire of society to assist the store owner in reducing the mounting problem of loss from shop lifting. Without the protection of the statute a store...