Coblyn v kennedy inc trial#

319, 326, the Court held that the same probable cause standard for making an arrest applies to the shopkeeper's privilege.

Coblyn v kennedy inc trial#

The court affirmed the decision of the trial court. The right to detain suspected shoplifters stems from G. He seized the frail and elderly Coblyn by the arm and took him back inside the store, but another employee confirmed that he was not shoplifting anything. 231, § 94B, which permitted a merchant to defend a false imprisonment claim by asserting that there were reasonable grounds for believing the person detained was attempting to commit larceny of goods. stopped Coblyn, a customer in the store, as he was leaving and accused him of stealing from the store. At the close of the evidence the defendants filed a motion for directed verdicts which was denied. On appeal, the store alleged that the detention was reasonable under Mass. This is an action of tort for false imprisonment. After trial, the jury returned a verdict for plaintiff. Plaintiff customer brought an action against defendant store for false imprisonment, after suffering a heart attack shortly after being stopped by a store employee before exiting the store and being escorted to see the manager because he was putting on a scarf taken out of his pocket. If a man is restrained of his personal liberty by fear of a personal difficulty, that amounts to a false imprisonment within the legal meaning of such term. The law is well settled that any general restraint is sufficient to constitute an imprisonment and any demonstration of physical power which, to all appearances, can be avoided only by submission, operates as effectually to constitute an imprisonment, if submitted to, as if any amount of force had been exercised.