Earns Costco

Costco Wholesale's policy says it checks receipts.

(Associated Press/2009)

A man who claims he was pushing his shopping cart out of a Portland Costco Wholesale warehouse when he was detained because he wouldn’t stop and show his receipt is suing the store for $670,000.

Timothy Walls emerged from the Jan. 28, 2013, encounter with a leg broken in multiple places, according to his lawsuit, filed last week in Multnomah County Circuit Court. According to one of Walls’ attorneys, Walls didn’t believe the store had a right to detain him based upon their practice of checking receipts at the door.

The policy states: "To ensure that all members are correctly charged for the merchandise purchased, all receipts and merchandise will be inspected as you leave the warehouse."

Walls had just bought $102.66 worth of goods from the 4849 N.E. 138th Ave. Costco location, and as he was leaving the store an employee grabbed and held onto his shopping cart and told him he couldn't leave, according to the suit.

Words were exchanged, and when the employee wouldn’t let go, Walls grabbed him by the shirt collar and pulled him away from his shopping cart, the suit states.

That’s when another employee used “a martial arts type strike with his leg” that the employee had learned while training with the U.S. Armed Forces, the suit states.

Walls contends he was already outside the store and in the breezeway. Costco contends he hadn’t left the store yet.

Bill Stockton, a Hillsboro attorney representing Costco, declined to comment. But in a motion he filed about the incident, he wrote that Walls' injuries were “the sole and direct result of (his) own conduct, fault, and negligence” because Walls is the one who attacked the employees.

Clayton Morrison, a Beaverton attorney representing Walls, said employees didn’t have reasonable suspicion that Walls was stealing and so they didn’t have a right to take hold of the merchandise Walls' lawfully bought. Morrison said the consequences for failing to abide by the store’s blanket policy of checking receipts shouldn’t be detainment -- it should be canceling the customer’s membership.

“The central issue in the case is ... ’What can Costco lawfully do? ... Can they actually stop you and take your property from you?’ Our answer is ‘No,’” Morrison said.

The issue is wider than just Walls' beef with Costco. As stores -- perhaps Costco being the most prominent -- check receipts at the door, some customers have declared the stops unreasonable and claimed a violation of their privacy rights, stemming from laws based off of the Fourth Amendment.

Walls is seeking $150,000 for past and future medical expenses, $20,000 for lost wages and $500,000 for pain and suffering.

-- Aimee Green