## Facts

- Lucia Ochoa Resendez shopped at a Wal-Mart store during her lunch break and ate peanuts from a bag bearing a Wal-Mart price sticker.
- A Wal-Mart security guard, Raul Salinas, observed Resendez place the empty peanuts bag under a rose bush, purchase other items, and exit the store.
- After checking the register, Salinas concluded Resendez had not paid for a bag of peanuts and confronted her in the parking lot.
- Salinas accused Resendez of theft and asked her to return to the store; she denied theft and stated she had bought the peanuts the prior day at another Wal-Mart and could produce a receipt, but she accompanied him inside.
- Resendez was held in the back of the store for about 10–15 minutes until police arrived; an officer arrested her for misdemeanor theft, and she was released about an hour later after posting bail.
- Resendez was convicted of misdemeanor theft at trial; the conviction was later set aside on appeal due to a defect in the charging instrument.
- Resendez sued Wal-Mart for malicious prosecution, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligence.
- A jury found Wal-Mart liable for false imprisonment and negligence and awarded damages; the intermediate appellate court eliminated the negligence recovery as a double recovery and affirmed the remaining judgment.

## Issues

1. Whether Wal-Mart’s detention of Resendez was “without the authority of law,” an element required for false imprisonment.
2. Whether Wal-Mart established the statutory shopkeeper’s privilege as a matter of law by showing (a) a reasonable belief of theft, (b) detention in a reasonable manner, and (c) detention for a reasonable period of time.
3. Whether alleged departures from a retailer’s internal security policies can supply the legal standard for determining the lawfulness of a detention under the shopkeeper’s privilege.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Texas reversed the court of appeals’ judgment and rendered judgment for Wal-Mart.
- The court held Wal-Mart proved as a matter of law that its employee detained Resendez based on a reasonable belief of theft, in a reasonable manner, and for a reasonable time under the shopkeeper’s privilege statute.
- Because the detention was authorized by law, Resendez could not recover for false imprisonment.
- The court rejected using Wal-Mart’s internal policies as the legal measure of whether the statutory privilege applied.

## Legal Principles

- False imprisonment requires a willful detention, without consent, and without the authority of law; if the detention is authorized by law, the tort fails.
- Texas’s shopkeeper’s privilege grants a merchant’s employee authority to detain a customer to investigate ownership of property when the employee reasonably believes the customer stole or is attempting to steal merchandise, and the detention is reasonable in manner and duration.
- Reasonableness of duration focuses on the merchant’s detention time; time attributable to police custody after an arrest is not treated as part of the merchant’s detention for purposes of the privilege.
- A merchant’s internal security policies do not define the legal limits of the shopkeeper’s privilege; the statutory reasonableness requirements control.

## Conclusion

The Texas Supreme Court held that Wal-Mart’s 10–15 minute detention of a customer suspected of shoplifting was statutorily privileged and therefore carried “authority of law,” defeating the false imprisonment claim and requiring judgment for Wal-Mart.


Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Resendez, 962 S.W.2d 539 (Tex. 1998)