OMAHA — An Omaha jury has ordered a discount store to pay a man convicted of shoplifting from it $750,000 for injuries he received from a store employee who confronted him about the stolen items.
A Douglas County jury on Friday found in favor of Richard "Dave" Moore, 59, who sued ShopKo after suffering several skull fractures and a brain injury when he was thrown to the ground by a ShopKo loss-prevention officer outside a store in northwest Omaha in November 2008.
Moore was confronted by two security workers after they said he pilfered two pairs of personal grooming scissors from the store. One of the workers, who outweighed Moore by 100 pounds, said he threw Moore to the ground when Moore resisted going back into the store. The worker said he feared Moore would use a pair of the scissors to stab him.
The man no longer works for ShopKo. The newspaper reported that an attorney for Shopko couldn't be reached for comment. It's unclear whether the retailer will appeal.
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At the trial, Shopko defended the actions of its employees, who were not sued by Moore.
Moore, who has said he has no memory of the day he was injured, pleaded no contest in 2009 to shoplifting and was fined $50.
His attorney, Richard Schicker of Omaha, said Moore, a former baker, has been unemployed in the seven years since his injury.
"Dave's reason for bringing the lawsuit was to try to make sure that this didn't happen to anybody else," Schicker said. "So we're hopeful that this causes loss-prevention people to follow their own guidelines. There was no need for this to happen. No one deserves to be thrown to the ground, even if you're a shoplifter."