I need information on the North American retailers' recovery of
shoplifting related costs using the civil court process. (civil
recovery)
The answer must include the current civil recovery legislation for ALL
States and the
decisons of any court cases involving civil recovery, together with
any statistics related to civil recovery use.
Any related media coverage would be of interest.
As always, the more comprehensive the answer, the more appreciative the 'asker'.

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 09 May 2005 05:10 PDT

4me2no-ga,

Thanks for the question.

I can get you the shoplifting laws for every state, such as this
excerpt from Alabama state law:

-----
Section 15-10-14 Detention and arrest of person suspected of larceny
of goods held for sale.

(a) A peace officer, a merchant or a merchant's employee who has
probable cause for believing that goods held for sale by the merchant
have been unlawfully taken by a person and that he can recover them by
taking the person into custody may, for the purpose of attempting to
effect such recovery, take the person into custody and detain him in a
reasonable manner for a reasonable length of time. Such taking into
custody and detention by a peace officer, merchant or merchant's
employee shall not render such police officer, merchant or merchant's
employee criminally or civilly liable for false arrest, false
imprisonment or unlawful detention.

(b) Any peace officer may arrest without warrant any person he has
probable cause for believing has committed larceny in retail or
wholesale establishments.

(c) A merchant or a merchant's employee who causes such arrest as
provided for in subsection (a) of this section of a person for larceny
of goods held for sale shall not be criminally or civilly liable for
false arrest or false imprisonment where the merchant or merchant's
employee has probable cause for believing that the person arrested
committed larceny of goods held for sale.
-----

It may be possible to find some general statistics as well.

But I must say, I can think of no way to answer the lawsuits part of
your quetion except to try digging up the information one state at a
time.  That would entail an awful lot of digging, even for a
high-priced question like this one.

An alternative approach may be to search for law review articles that
cover civil recovery or shoplifting, as these sorts of articles
generally provide an overview of key cases and emerging trends.  (I
can't provide full text of the articles, since they are copyrighted,
but I can certainly provide some cogent excerpts).

Let me know your thoughts on this.

pafalafa-ga

---

Clarification of Question by 4me2no-ga on 09 May 2005 08:47 PDT

Thanks for jumping in,Pafalafa,
The sections of the law which you have posted deal with the authority
to arrest, however I want the specific civil recovery legislation.
I know that each State has 'civil recovery' legislation which sets out
damage amounts which the retailer may claim from the shoplifter as a
result of the theft.
These amounts vary from State to State and it is this information which I require.
If you pick up any of the other information which I mentioned then so
much the better.
To be sure you are on the right track, perhaps you can let me know if
I am clear enough as to what I need before you begin.
I realise that it is a significant amount of work and I see that,
although they limit the 'list price', they don't seem to limit tips!

It appears that you believe that the retailers use the subsidy of the
civil recovery statutes passed in their states and actually file civil
suits for civil recovery damages as allowed by the respective state
laws.
Actually,  most civil recovery is accomplished by demand letters that
are sent to "shoplifters" who have been ticketed or cited for larceny
shoplifting by the cities  in the security offices of the retail
stores.  These letter demands are authorized by law and are made under
the THREAT of prosecuting the shoplifter under the CIVIL law unless
the money damages are remitted within a certain time period.
Most of these demands are made out of the view of the courts and it
would be difficult to determine how much money is extracted by the
American  retail corporations  from apprehended and cited 
shoplifters.  Only a few of the states are requiring the retailers to
report their demand letters to the courts.
All of the State Statutes for Civil Recovery and Civil Demand used to
be available on Google from one of the Civil Recovery Firms who
specialize in civil recovery and civil demand but I haven't been able
to find them lately.   I'm sure they would provide this information to
you for a charge.