Fired for Petty Theft (Not Guilty)

My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: California

I worked for a company from June 2010 to October 2011. Here is my story...

I worked for a grocery store that uses self check outs & I worked up front to assist customers with their check out process. Now I would always bring in my own drinks from home or else I would buy them at work before I clocked in and I would store them in the cold case up front that customers use to buy drinks. You know cold cases up front at the check outs that have all the impulse buy sodas and drinks on them? Well since I worked up front all day I could just leave my drinks in the cold case to just get the chilled and cold. So October 18th my shift starts like any normal day and about 30 minutes in, I get pulled into the office and there is the loss prevention guy there. He has me sit down and my store manager sits in with us I guess to be a "witness" and he proceeds to ask me general questions about things and tells me who he is and what his job is all about. Then he says he is gonna record our convo and i sign a paper consenting to it. I didn't care I had no idea why I was in there. So he starts asking me if I know what "grazing" is and I am telling him "not really" and thats when he tells me it's when employees start stealing things on the side. I start understanding now and think to myself "wtf? this man thinks I stole something?" Then he starts telling me, "You know times are tough and sometimes people just don't have enough money for things, if you tell me why you did it, it wont have to go past these four walls."

I tell him "Take what? what did I take? I have no idea what you're talking about??" He then starts to get frustrated with me and tells me that if I am going to be difficult with him, he wont be able to help me and I seriously have no idea what the hell this man is accusing me of so I keep telling him to tell me what i did and he says "alright if you're gonna be messing around I can't do nothing for you" and he ends the "interview" and turns the tape recorder off. Then he tells me that on Oct 14, I went and purchased my lunch then walked up to the cold case and threw 2 drinks into my bag and just walked to the break room. I couldn't remember what I brought to drink on Oct 14th so I asked him if I could see the video of me taking the drinks and he said "Yeah you can watch them in court!" He then proceeds to handcuff me and tells me i am under arrest for petty theft and then he calls the sheriff. It takes the sheriff about 2 and a half hours to get there, so I am sitting in the office all that time handcuffed and he's telling me I just should have came clean and admitted it and all this time I am denying it and saying if i could just look at the video and see what i am taking and i told him I always bring my drinks from home and then store them in the cold case.

I told him that he should watch the video of me that day from the beginning of my shift and see if I came in and put the drinks in the cold case before hand. He said he did that and he said it didn't show me storing anything that day. How do I know he was telling me the truth since he wouldn't let me watch the video for myself?

Finally the sheriff arrives and they show him the video but I am not aloud to see it. So the video obviously shows me putting something in my bag and the sheriff is like "Dude, i saw the video, just admit it!" And i was trying to explain to him how I bring in my own drinks and he was like "I don't want to hear it man, stop trying to flip the story around" The loss prevention guy and the sheriff step outside the office to chat for a minute and when they come back in the sheriff goes "Look, you did it, your on camera doing it, just admit to us you did it and you can go home right now, we'll let you go and just charge you, but if you keep lying to us and telling us you didn't do anything I'll take you to jail RIGHT NOW!" This sheriff was really putting the scare into me and I didn't want to go to jail. So he said "So you did it, didn't you?" And I was scared and just wanted to go home so I reluctantly said "Yes" and finally falsely admitted to it because I really didn't know what else to do and just wanted to get out of there.

This is my story and this is 100% what happened. Not one time in the year and a half that I worked there did I ever even once think about stealing. Guys, what can I do? I feel this was an unlawful termination. Can I get unemployment while I fight it? How do I convince UE on my phone interview that I was wrongfully terminated and am truly innocent? This is a hell of a situation and I need help, just don't know what to do!

What can you do about being fired? Nothing. Your employer can fire you if it believes you're stealing, even if it's wrong. And your employer can fire you if you confess to stealing, even if you later regret stating that you stole and insist that you were lying. For that matter, your employer can fire you for lying about stealing even if you manage to later convince your employer that you were wrongly accused. Not to mention, your employer can fire you for storing your personal items in a merchandise display case.

There was no break room at the store? No lockers? No place for employees to store lunch or designated storage area for personal items? In over a year, no customer ever bought one of your drinks from the case?

Should we infer that you applied for unemployment and were denied? If you're appealing, be sure to contact the Office of Appeals ASAP and subpoena the full security videotape that you claim will show you putting your items into the display case. That's your best shot at convincing them that you didn't steal and that your confession was false.

A wrongful termination isn't being terminated for something you didn't do but being
terminated for a reason prohibited by law. (ie age, religion, gender)

You may or may not get UI - it's the state's decision. Good luck to you.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. If that was the case then why go all out against me like that instead of just letting me go? They had me cuffed in the office for a good 2 and a half hours, falsely accused of theft, threatened with jail, and just ruin my reputation and potential to get another job in the future? They screw up everything for me when the boss could have just pulled me into the office and gave me a pink slip right there? They can do that and get away with it? It feels wrong and I can't even believe it happened to me.

I haven't been denied UE yet because my phone interview is not until November 8th, but I am anticipating the denial. How do I convince these guys?

Your employer handcuffed you and kept you on their premises against your will? Or the police handcuffed you?

You definitely need to answer eerelations' questions. If your employer did this, you were unlawfully restrainted (a form of kidnapping) and you can take legal action against the employer for doing so. If the police did that, then it was lawful.

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Quoting Beth3

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If your employer did this, you were unlawfully restrainted (a form of kidnapping) and you can take legal action against the employer for doing so.

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The employer would deserve every bit of punishment they got for it too. I have never worked for a company that allows employee theft suspects to be physically restrained, nor heard of a company that does. The companies I have worked for even say if an employee tries to run or becomes combative to simply let them go. File a report with the police and move on to the next one.

As a note, folks, in CA a merchant CAN use "use a reasonable amount of nondeadly force necessary" in order to effect a detention long enough to conduct the investigation. (PC 490.5(f)(2)) So, even if the merchant did handcuff him (and I believe it was the Sheriff's Deputy, not the loss prevention people), it may be entirely lawful. SO, let us not get distracted by that red herring.

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Quoting cdwjava

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As a note, folks, in CA a merchant CAN use "use a reasonable amount of nondeadly force necessary" in order to effect a detention long enough to conduct the investigation. (PC 490.5(f)(2)) So, even if the merchant did handcuff him (and I believe it was the Sheriff's Deputy, not the loss prevention people), it may be entirely lawful. SO, let us not get distracted by that red herring.

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I agree that it was most likely the Deputy. As I stated most companies don't normally allow handcuffing of employee theft subjects, not that that affects the legality of it. Many states have similar merchant protection statutes that allow for use of reasonable force. Cuffing a compliant employee might be a bit much but that would be for the legal beagles to hammer out. But if the LP personnel cuffed them for 2+ hours, that would on its face seem to violate the spirit if not the letter of the statute depending on the totality of circumstances. I have left combative shoplifters handcuffed for over an hour waiting for law enforcement but they had to be cuffed for everyone's safety. Law enforcement then left them cuffed for quite a while to process the case.

He told us that the LP officer who confronted him for the alleged theft detained him and promptly called the Sheriff ("He then proceeds to handcuff me and tells me i am under arrest for petty theft and then he calls the sheriff.") As was previously noted, per California Penal Code section 490.5, subdivision (f)(1): "A merchant may detain a person for a reasonable time for the purpose of conducting an investigation in a reasonable manner whenever the merchant has probable cause to believe the person to be detained is attempting to unlawfully take or has unlawfully taken merchandise from the merchant's premises." It might be possible to make a claim that the duration or circumstances of the detention described were not reasonable. I think it would be difficult to point to a set number of minutes after calling the police where a court would say it's per se unreasonable to continue to wait for an officer, but if there's a 2-1/2 hour wait during which the LP keeps saying, "Confess and I'll let you go", you're on your way toward what the courts held unreasonable in Moffat v. Buffums' Inc. (1937) 21 Cal. App.2d 371, an old case but one that continues to be cited as authority on the limits of the merchant's privilege.

Hey guys, I appreciate all your input. The person that handcuffed me was actually the Loss Prevention guy. They say he was a former cop. Yes I was in the office for a good 2 and a half hours with the LP guy. He just had me sit in a chair handcuffed, while he sat at his lap top typing stuff up and occasionally calling in the store manager and telling her "Hey can you get me this this and this." But he wouldn't say out loud what he was asking her to get, just writing it down on paper and giving it to her, and every once in a while he would just say "Man you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble if you just confessed to this." After all that time I was in there he started to get weary and looked at his watch and told me he couldn't keep me here all day and was about to let me go and just at that moment the Sheriff arrived.

You are, of course, free to consult a lawyer about the possibility of taking action against your employer. I'm skeptical that you'll find a law firm interested in litigating the case, but there are lots of lawyers in the world and you may well find one who believes he can help you make a claim.