Detained by home center

[noeler]

What is the name of your statCALIFORNIA I was picking up lights with the paperwork i had from the guy i was installing them for and also buying a couple of things and then the cahsier gets a call from the manager and she said are you comming to look at his paperwork after she hung up the phone i paid her and asked if her manager was coming to check out my paperwork she said no everythings ok as i walked out of the store 2 guys flashed some kind of badge at me and forcfully took me to this back room against my will and asked me why i just stole those items i told them to check my paperwork then they cuffed me and said that the paper work wasnt mine and that i just needed to come cleanI i told them again just check out my paperwork they laughed and asked why i didnt have any money as they were going through wallet and scroling through my phone nubers on my phone i then told them that i had a rare disease and when im under lots of stress i can go into shock and that my medicine was in my back pocket if they could get me some water and take the cuffs off so i could take some they ignored me icontinued to tell them that my paperwork was good to check it out they refused about an hour and a half later1 of the guys was writing the report in the computer recieved a call and said o **** and came over to me and took the cuffs off and said i was free to go with the merchandise and told me that i screwed up some how i refused to take any of the merchandise i have been all stressed out and havent been to work over this they didnt even say sorry what can i do about this ?
(only U.S. law)?

[ecmst12]

Try that again with Caps Lock OFF, and maybe someone will read it.

[OldandTired]

What was this paperwork you had supposed to tell them? Was this paperwork from an open account that the contractor had with this store? Was it the receipt for the items you purchased?

A few more details please?

[InsaneJane]

Sounds like unlawfull confinement. Talk to a lawyer at your soonest.
Good luck.

[ecmst12]

Sentences, paragraphs, and punctuation of some sort would also be helpful.

Were you lying about your "rare disease"?

I don't see anything illegal here. How long were you held?

[Nativity]

If you paid for the merchandise why would you leave without it?

[noeler]

The paperwork was a will call that also had the reciept with it and yes the disease i have is an acute adreanal difficiancy me and my brother are in medical history books and i did take the items i had purchased but i had the guy i was working for pick up the will call

[ecmst12]

You were detained for half an hour on suspicion of theft. They determined you did not steal anything and let you go. Game over.

[OldandTired]

Cal. PC 207:

207. (a) Every person who forcibly, or by any other means of
instilling fear, steals or takes, or holds, detains, or arrests any
person in this state, and carries the person into another country,
state, or county, or into another part of the same county, is guilty
of kidnapping.

Cal. PC 236:

236. False imprisonment is the unlawful violation of the personal
liberty of another.

See where this could go? While they might have thought they had reason to detain him, I feel pretty certain this is where the "Oh ****" call came into play.

Contact a local Civil Attorney, AFTER contacting your local Police Department and asking to file a report for at least kidnapping. Let the officer advise you while he is at your house whether or not a crime has been committed. If he states one has not, then contact the attorney.

Overzealous rent-a-cops showed negligence by not taking the time to verify that your items had been paid for, i.e; you had the receipts with you.

[Nativity]

Originally Posted by noeler

The paperwork was a will call that also had the reciept with it and yes the disease i have is an acute adreanal difficiancy me and my brother are in medical history books and i did take the items i had purchased but i had the guy i was working for pick up the will call

It's called Acute Adrenal Insufficiency.

[ecmst12]

Unless of course the person with the cuffs was a police officer, he did have a badge. If so, what he did was perfectly legal.

[OldandTired]

but that would be the warm-fuzzy. I highly doubt that is the case here. I would believe more that these 2 men were store security.

Here comes that Lottery-Lawsuit someone spoke of before. LOL!

[Ozark_Sophist]

Unauthorized access of the electronic device (phone) is a violation of OP's privacy and could potentially be criminal.

[tranquility]

This is not going to be kidnapping. At best is is a false arrest with not that much in damages. The key will be reasonable. Was their identification of the OP reasonable? Was the force used to detain him and bring him to the back reasonable?

We have the shopkeeper's privilege. Reasonable cause, reasonable force, reasonable time, reasonable investigation. Those are each a question of fact with the end result, if violated, is damages. What were the OP's damages?

No lottery, no kidnapping; damages--at best. I think the biggest problems is the search of the wallet and the search of the phone.

Info edit:
I didn't think of potential criminal charges for the phone search. But the electronic privacy laws are so screwy, it's possible. I think it unlikely to be charged, but there is probably a violation of something there.

[Ozark_Sophist]

Originally Posted by tranquility

Info edit:
I didn't think of potential criminal charges for the phone search. But the electronic privacy laws are so screwy, it's possible. I think it unlikely to be charged, but there is probably a violation of something there.

I have a Mogul phone with a couple gigabites of information stored. It is essentially a laptop as I have Office Pro on it and do Work and Excel documents all the time. A phone search to me would be incredibly invasive. A wallet search in the context of OP's situation could be explained as a search for receipts and what not that could be part of a fraud.

The law needs to catch up in a sensible manner regarding portable electronic devices.