08/14/2026
Imagine a frozen self-checkout turning a grocery run into a five-year court battle.
In November 2016, Lesleigh Nurse went to a Walmart in Semmes, Alabama, to buy groceries with her family. According to her lawsuit, the self-checkout scanner froze during the transaction, a Walmart employee helped her, and she believed everything had gone through normally.
But as she left, an asset protection manager stopped her. Nurse was later arrested and charged with shoplifting $48 worth of items, 11 in total, including Christmas lights, a loaf of bread, and Cap’n Crunch cereal.
The criminal case was dismissed about a year later for “want of prosecution” after a Walmart employee connected to the case did not appear in court. Then Nurse said she received letters from a Florida law firm threatening a civil lawsuit unless she paid a $200 settlement, more than the value of the items she had been accused of taking.
Her lawsuit argued Walmart used criminal accusations to pressure people into civil recovery payments. During trial, testimony said Walmart and other major retailers used similar civil recovery practices in states where the law allowed it. One expert testified Walmart collected hundreds of millions of dollars through such letters over a two-year period.
In November 2021, a Mobile County jury ruled in Nurse’s favor on an abuse-of-process claim and awarded her $2.1 million in punitive damages. The jury ruled for Walmart on other claims, including false arr*st, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, and slander.
Walmart said it believed its associates acted appropriately, that the verdict was not supported by the evidence, and that the damages exceeded what the law allowed. The company also said it would file post-trial motions.
Have you ever had a self-checkout problem that made you nervous at the store?
Sources: wkrg, CBS News, AP News, thehill