Four days in jail for using old $100 bills

MOBILE, Ala. — A federal court in Alabama denied Walmart’s motion to dismiss vicarious liability claims brought by a customer who spent four days in jail when an off-duty police officer working as a security guard arrested him for attempting to pay $500 on his Walmart credit card with five $100 bills he thought were counterfeit. The 1996 series of $100 bills were merely old, not counterfeit, and he was acting in his capacity as a cop and not as Walmart security when he arrested the man. The court is “narrowly persuaded” the claim against Walmart should not be dismissed “at this stage of the litigation.”