Legal Question in Business Law in California
Do stores have the right to detain for receipt checking?
It is becoming a common practice for "mega-stores" to subject
all customers to a rather humiliating practice, being stopped at the exit and made to show a receipt to a door guard. At times, this causes a delay as people line up. My understanding of California law is that a merchant may detain people only if they have reasonable cause to suspect shoplifting. This is different, as the stores stop everyone and match the items on the receipt to those in the shopping bag. Do they have the right to do this after the merchandise is paid for? Can I just say, "No, thanks" and refuse the intimidation? Does it matter if it is a membership store?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Do stores have the right to detain for receipt checking?
The law would probably deem this as consent to the search since the store makes it obvious to customers that this is a condition of their marketing to the public. The courts will weigh the right of the store to avoid shoplifters with the individual right of privacy. It seems that this is not such an extreme inconvenience nor an intrusion into your privacy that the court would make the stores stop this practice. The courts would probably deem that you have consented to this practice by shopping at this store. If the store applies the practice discriminatorily to a class of people then I think a good theory of legal action could be stated.
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