Wal-Mart Detained a Shoplifter in the Main Traffic Aisle With Customers Still Walking Past. He Broke Away, Ran Into Her Cart, and She Lives With a Permanent Ileostomy.
After trial: Affirmed, and the figure that matters is not the headline. The gross verdict was $16,922,000, and it is described almost everywhere as a $16.9 million verdict against Wal-Mart. It was not. Under W. Va. Code 55-7-24 judgment was entered severally by apportioned fault, so Wal-Mart's judgment is $5,076,600, its 30 percent share, and the remaining 70 percent was apportioned to the shoplifter, who is not a source of recovery. The WV Supreme Court of Appeals affirmed that structure along with the denial of Wal-Mart's post-trial motions on November 18, 2020 (No. 19-0666, 854 S.E.2d 257). On the gross number this remains likely the largest single-plaintiff verdict in Wood County history. Not a medical professional liability case, so W. Va. Code 55-7B-8 does not apply.
Won by Bordas & Bordas, PLLC.
Johna Ankrom, 52, was shopping with her granddaughter when Wal-Mart employees detained a shoplifter in the vestibule's main traffic aisle. He broke away, collided with her cart and pulled it down on top of her. She suffered traumatic intestinal injuries, went through multiple surgeries, and now lives with a permanent ileostomy.
What happened
In February 2015 Johna Diane Ankrom, 52, of Mineral Wells was shopping with her granddaughter at the South Parkersburg Wal-Mart.
Employees had stopped a shoplifter, Robert Leist, in the vestibule near the exit after he took a pair of gloves. He gave the gloves back. They kept him there, in the store's main traffic aisle, with customers still moving past.
He broke away and ran. He collided with Ankrom's shopping cart, knocked her to the floor and pulled the cart down on top of her. She sustained traumatic intestinal injuries, went through multiple surgeries, and now lives with a permanent ileostomy.
The case against Wal-Mart was not that it should have let a shoplifter go. It was about the manner and the place: a store that chooses to detain someone in a busy exit aisle, with shoppers walking around them, has made a decision about where the risk of a struggle is going to land.
After five days of testimony a Wood County jury deliberated for under two hours and awarded $6.5 million in past and future medical expenses plus more than $10 million in general damages. It apportioned 30 percent of the fault to Wal-Mart and 70 percent to Leist.
That apportionment is the whole story of the number, and almost every account of this case gets it wrong. W. Va. Code 55-7-24, enacted in 2005, makes judgment several rather than joint, and the circuit court read it to count Leist as a defendant for apportionment even though he was a third-party defendant. So the judgment entered against Wal-Mart was its own 30 percent share: $5,076,600. The other 70 percent sits on a shoplifter.
On November 18, 2020 the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals affirmed both the denial of Wal-Mart's post-trial motions and the entry of judgment against each defendant according to its apportioned fault.
Ankrom was represented by James G. Bordas III of Bordas and Bordas, who led at trial, with Scott S. Blass, James B. Stoneking and John Artimez, and Todd S. Wiseman of the Wiseman Law Firm in Vienna as local counsel.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Wal-Mart Stores East, L.P. v. Ankrom, 854 S.E.2d 257 (W. Va. Nov. 18, 2020), No. 19-0666: the opinion, giving the Wood County venue before Judge J.D. Beane, the single plaintiff with Leist as a third-party defendant rather than a co-plaintiff, the February 2015 detention in the vestibule traffic aisle and the collision, the 30/70 apportionment, the affirmance of judgment against each defendant according to its apportioned fault, and the counsel block for the appellee
- 2.West Virginia MetroNews, Mar. 5, 2019: the Wood County jury award, quoting Jamie Bordas for the plaintiff
- 3.Marietta Times, March 2019: the Wood County jury verdict and the five-day trial
- 4.West Virginia Record: the state Supreme Court affirms in the injury verdict against Wal-Mart
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