John Harris V. Home Depot
On October 10, 2001 at 10:30AM a customer named John Harris was shopping at the Home Depot store located at 50-10 Northern Boulevard in Long Island City, New York. The security guard, Joseph Degurre, was on duty at the time of the alleged offense. Joseph Degurre, an off duty police officer and was given written and signed permission by his higher authority to have the security officer position at Home Depot as a “moonlighting” or secondary job. Mr. Degurre was hired for undercover surveillance in plain clothes. Mr. Degurre followed Mr. Harris and kept a distance of an aisle length, in order not to be detected by Mr. Harris who was acting suspicious while examining a Dewalt drill selection that was of a high retail value in the Tool Coral. Under the penal law, a retailer will meet reasonable cause standards when they rely on eyewitness reports or surveillance to substantiate a suspect’s taking store merchandise or other suspicious conduct. At the Home Depot the highest shrink area is the Tool Coral, which has desirable items at the highest retail price, such as power tools, hand tools, and special accessories. A large majority of these items are large, but some premium pieces such as
Under the law, Mr. Degurre had probable cause to suspect Mr. Harris of taking the missing equipment. Probable cause is not a question of fact for the jury but a question of law for the court to decide, to be determined by circumstances at the time of the detention and/or crime. Collyer V. Kress, 5 Cal. 2d 181 (1936). The issue is whether probable cause was found in the following circumstances: (a) when store employees see suspect take merchandise and put it in an overcoat, Id. At 176; (b) observing suspects on camera for 10-15 minutes follow other customers, disappear into a back room reserved for employees only, and realization suspect committed purse theft hours earlier. In re Leslie H., 169 Cal. App. 3d 659: (c) store security guard observed suspects walk from department to department picking up items then looking behind and side by side, suspects took tools in to display shed and closed door, suspect exited shed with additional bag. Cervantez V. J.C. Penney, 24 Cal. 3d 579, 586 (1979): (d) store LPS agent observed plaintiff enter store, untuck his shirt, handle various items, and exit the store walking in front of checkout counters without passing cashiers. Jones V. K-Mart, 50 Cal. App. 4th 1898, 1201-02 (1996) Retailers have a qualified privilege to detain a suspected shoplifter. Penal Code section 490.5(f) contains the statutory privilege that allows retailers to detain for a reasonable time a suspected shoplifter for the purposes of conducting an investigation, including the use of a reasonable amount of non-deadly force to affect the detention of the suspected shoplifter. The qualified statutory privilege al
Some topics in this essay:
Tool Coral,
Emilie Goodwill,
Cal App,
Penal Code,
Collyer Kress,
Home Depot,
Cervantez JCPenney,
JC Penney,
Joseph Degurre,
USA October,
drill bits,
probable cause,
suspected shoplifter,
home depot,
tool coral,
statutory privilege,
missing equipment,
dewalt drill,
security office,
bulge harris’s waist,
reasonable amount,
statutory privilege allows,
retailer’s conduct privileged,
579 586 1979,
joseph degurre duty,
Join now to see the rest of the essay!
Approximate Word count = 1104
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
Example Essays Home
