By
CHAMBERLAIN McHANEY
Tx/Up! CULTURAL
UPDATE:
One of our legal
assistants/foreign correspondents,
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WERE
THE FROSTED FLAKES FILCHED? TEXAS
SUPREME COURT REVERSES LOWER COURTS IN MALICIOUS PROSECUTION CASE: Last
Friday, the Texas Supreme
Court overruled a lower court’s ruling that a Dallas area grocery store had
maliciously prosecuted a long time customer. Theresa Suberu sued Kroger Grocery Store
for malicious prosecution after she was acquitted of misdemeanor theft charges
arising from an alleged shoplifting incident. The jury and the lower courts found in
her favor, awarding her $500 in actual damages for expenses in defending the
prosecution, $28,000 for past and future mental anguish, and $50,500 in
exemplary damages. Kroger appealed to the
Back in 1999, Suberu went to Kroger
purchase medication. The Kroger
pharmacist recognized Suberu as a prior customer and placed the medicine on the
counter. Suberu used cash for all transactions and when she realized she
did not have enough in her purse, she told the pharmacist that she would go to
her car in the parking lot and get some more money and return
momentarily.
Suberu was leaving the store when Weir,
the front-end manager, yelled "Stop!" According to Wier, Suberu was pushing a
grocery cart full of unsacked goods. Suberu, however, testified that she has
never used a cart to shop for groceries and did not have one that evening. Wier reached Suberu in the foyer, where
the two had a brief quarrel. Suberu
testified that Wier said, "Those two people who just left, you are with them,"
and "You are going to jail for a long time." Wier, however, denied making those
statements. She claimed Suberu
became hostile when Wier asked to see a receipt, and that Suberu kept shouting,
"You're crazy!" Suberu testified
that she was annoyed because Wier would not listen to her explanation for
leaving the store. Wier called the
police who arrested Suberu and walked her out in handcuffs. Suberu subsequently won acquittal in the
criminal jury trial. Once exonerated, she filed this civil
suit.
The Supreme Court said that
Suberu argued that her trial testimony
that she did not have a shopping cart had persuaded the jury and
constituted more than sufficient evidence to support a finding that she had been
unjustifiably prosecuted. The Supreme Court disregarded that argument,
stating that, in contrast to a criminal case, the question is not whether Suberu
did or did not have a cart full of pilfered prunes and peaches, but whether
Kroger reasonably believed she did. Wier and a couple of other Kroger
employees testified that they observed Suberu leaving the store with a cart
containing kidnapped kraut and purloined sirloin. The court reasoned that
the law presumes that Kroger honestly and reasonably acted on the basis of these
observations, and Suberu simply did not rebut the
presumption.
The law requires
more than showing Kroger made a bad mistake. The plaintiff is required to
go further and show malice on the part of Kroger to do her
harm.
Said the Court: “The criminal law
presumes Suberu's innocence and presents the State with a heavy burden of proof
for a conviction, because it is more important that the guilty occasionally go
free than for the innocent to be jailed.” On the other hand, “The civil law
presumes Kroger's good faith and requires Suberu to rebut this presumption,
because it is more important that a private citizen report an apparent
subversion of our laws than for the wrongly accused to attain monetary redress
from the accuser.” Our advice? Carry a credit
card.
Kroger v. Suberu (
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Tx/Up!
OIL
UPDATE:
Gasoline-$3.00 a
gallon…DEAL or NO DEAL?
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Our
lawyer
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Tx/Up! VACATION
UPDATE:
As
Tx/Up! prepares for our annual staff
reporters’ campout, we were wondering why it takes only one match to start a
forest fire but a whole box to start a campfire.
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512-474-9124