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

Hello and thank in advance for reading my post.

I know no matter what amount, stealing is technically stealing but let my give a bit of background.

First, I am writing on behalf of my mother. She is 62 yrs old, lives in Florida and has been working at a large supermarket chain for over 10 yrs. I, on the other had live over 3000 miles away hence why I am trying to help "virtually".

She has some medical problems that she has been working through. Her position is fairly physical and she is in constant pain.Reason I say this is just to give you an idea of my mother, a hard working person that despite her age and ailments, still walks to work everyday and rarely calls in sick., She also lives alone and other then her job, she has nothing much else.

The other day she had walked to work. She was not feeling well. Light headed, dizzy. She still had time before she was to punch in. The only thing on her mind was to go get some water. In the store they have a fountain drink setup. Employees are allowed to take free water, but everything else must be paid for. As she went to get water she thought to herself that maybe she should get Ice tea in case she was having blood sugar issues. She took the ice tea and went to go sit in the office. It was locked. She then thought of the bench right outside the store doors and decided she would go there. He intent was to pay but when she saw how long the line was and the fact she was feeling more dizzy she decided to sit on the bench, have the drink, return to the store, pay for the drink and punch it.

Of course 1 minute after she get outside and sits down the customer service manager came out and asked her if she paid for that. She said no but she was going to. she was told not too, just forget it. She dumped the drink out, went inside, punched in and went to work. 15 min later she was approached by management and was told to go home, she had been fired for theft.

She is devastated. She has no retirement, does not think anyone will hire her after this at her age and most likely not qualify for unemployment. I know Florida is a at will state and I guess it can be argued that is was theft, but when I look at the definition and law, the word "intent" is always mentioned.

Any thoughts on this? She has 7 days to dispute the firing within the company. We started filling out the form but the question of "describe the reason you disagree with the decision of termination" has us stuck. Is the lack of intent sufficient? Or again does it just come down to they can fire her for whatever reason the want as long as its not because its a protected group? (honestly I do think the fact that she is a 62yr old women who cant seem to keep up with the physical demands of the position might have played a part)

Or is accusing someone of theft some sort of defamation? They will most certainly tell the unemployment agency their accusation.

Sorry for the long post but I am trying to reach out to get some sort of direction. I live in a country where things like this don't happen and it has become hard for me to conceive and come up with a plan for my mom.

Thank you again