[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Ohio case Ware v. Shin, on appeal by victim of “false imprisonment” (challenging a summary judgment declaring the store the winner):
Here, on the issue of lawful privilege, appellant agrees that when the alarm first sounded, the clerk had probable cause to detain her in a reasonable manner for a reasonable length of time as allowed by R.C. 2935.041(A).
Now, the victim is doing the appealing - why would she concede that merely tripping the electronic alarm constituted “probable cause” if Orion is right and the rest of us are wrong?
She has no reason to concede the point - she has every right to argue that the lower court got the law wrong by suggesting the initial threshold of “probable cause” was satisfied by a mere alarm in its summary judgment ruling. And yet, she concedes and agrees with the appellee (the store) that a store alarm going off creates “probable cause”.
How come? Does Orion know something that the appellant’s lawyers in Ohio don’t w/r/t what constitutes “probable cause” in a shoplifting situation?
Smart money says go with the Ohio attorneys and the Ohio appellate court. The legal determination at the trial level that a mere alarm constituted “probable cause” went undisturbed on appeal - no one bothered, as a matter of law, to make the claims we see from our Rage Against the Machiners. For good reason.
The appellant did contend that after the clerk had the initial “probable cause” to detain her and his search yielded nothing that “probable cause” disappeared - and the court agreed.
So, everyone clear? An appellate court in the state of Ohio had every chance to stomp on the idea that a mere alarm did not constitute “probable cause” - and didn’t. The appellant didn’t even bother to challenge the notion of alarm-is-probable-cause. The court only recognized that “probable cause” evaporated only after the clerk conducted a search and found nothing, per the appellant’s contention…
To recap…[w]e also find that reasonable minds could only conclude that the clerk had no lawful privilege to detain appellant after he searched appellant’s purse.(emphasis mine)
http://www.sconet.state.oh.us/rod/newpdf/6/2006/2006-ohio-976.pdf
Now, if “probable cause” meant what Orion hoped it meant (citing random cases from the internet), the appellant’s lawyers would have put that argument square at the top of the list: defeat “probable cause” from the outset here, and the rest of the case is history: no initial probable cause the first time, and all detainment after that is against the law.
But they didn’t. For a reason.[/quote]
A store alarm instantaniously shows the likelyhood of stealing and the not paying part, i.e probable cause.
Anything else?