A Manhattan judge has barred Macy’s from detaining shoppers suspected of stealing and forcing them to pay a penalty before letting them go.
The ruling came in Brooklyn resident Cinthia Orellana’s class-action suit against the retailer because its staffers locked her in a holding cell inside Macy’s Herald Square store for allegedly shoplifting discount shirts in July 2015.
Orellana, an Honduran immigrant with limited English, was told to sign papers and paid a $100 fee, and yet cops still came to arrest her, her suit says. The charges were later dropped.
State law allows retailers to temporarily detain and fine suspected shoplifters, but Supreme Court Justice Manuel Mendez said in his decision released Wednesday that Macy’s abused the statute.
The law was never intended to “confer a license to embarrass, humiliate and harm innocent . . . consumers,” Mendez said.
The law was enacted in part to prevent teenage shoplifters from being saddled with criminal records.
A lawyer for Macy’s did not respond to a request for comment.