Johnson v. Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Inc.

Winston Johnson (plaintiff), after buying a CD at Barnes & Noble (defendant), asked a clerk for help finding a book, and when she bent to reach a low shelf, Johnson touched her or her shirt - which he claimed was only an effort to help her tuck it in, but which she reported as him grabbing her buttocks. Store managers and a security guard detained Johnson in an office for one to two hours until police arrived, during which he was interrogated, photographed, and subjected to racial remarks; police ultimately returned his ID and told him to leave without charges. Johnson sued for false imprisonment, presenting evidence of resulting embarrassment, a facial twitch, insomnia, weight loss, and a lifetime store ban, along with expert testimony that Barnes & Noble had no policies to prevent employees from unlawfully detaining customers; the jury awarded Johnson $117,000, and Barnes & Noble appealed, arguing the court should have instructed the jury on citizen's-arrest justification and that damages were excessive.