Wrongly accused for stealing.

[goodbye_puppy]

My friend went to a Walgreen store a year ago. He saw a $50.00 bill on the floor, he picked it up and put in his wallet. He used that $50.00 to pay for something at the check out counter. The cashier looked at him funny and told him to pick a number. My friend said a wild number of 1977. The cashier and the store manager said that the $50.00 belongs to Walgreen's cash register since they have a trace number/mark. They called the police and had my friend arrested. My friend did 2 weeks of jail time for this.

There was no video camera or any hard evidence. My friend was busted mainly because he had some criminal records in the past, But he is a hardworking contractor now.

My friend hired a lawyer and tried to sue the employee and Walgreen company. Last month, his lawyer told my friend that he will file a default on Walgreen since they are not responding. But, today, the lawyer said that my friend should dismiss the lawsuit since Walgreen's employees are protect by a new policy/law.

I told my friend to give me all the paperwork, so that I could take a good look at this non-sense response.



My questions are:
1. who should my friend sue, the employee, the Walgreen , the police, or ?

2. Can my friend sue the lawyer, who delayed the filing. My friend told him to file 5 months ago, which was before this new policy/law came out.

3. What kind of the compensation is reasonable for my friend.

Thank you so very much for your help.

[LP1186]

The incident doesn't make sense. There must be something that your friend is not telling you, or left out not realizing its importance. If he truely did find the money on the ground, than he would more right to that money than anyone except the owner. Basically meaning that he can keep that money until the owner (the store) claims it. If the store told him that was their money and he refused to return it than it would become theft. The whole deal about the cashier asking him to pick a number does not make any sense and is completely irrelevent. Also, the store would not have "marked" the money unless they were setting it up to see if someone would steal it. This makes me think...did your friend really pick it up off the ground or did he get it from somewhere else?

[PaulE]

Possession is 9/10ths of the law, but I am leaning towards 'finders keepers, losers weepers'. Somebody's playing games with this, 1186 is right, this smells wrong. Walgreen's employees have better things to do than mess around like this.