Hurt while stealing

If you get hurt during your arrest by shop lifting police, you may not recover for your injuries, because you were hurt as a result of the fact you were stealing.

Concluding that the record showed the plaintiff's shoplifting contributed to the chain of events that led to her injuries, the court held that the wrongful conduct rule barred her claims and affirmed the trial court's order granting the defendants summary disposition. The case arose from an altercation between plaintiff and defendant-Duncan, a loss prevention supervisor for the defendant-Kohl's. "Plaintiff shoplifted clothing from Kohl's, and Duncan pursued her into the parking lot. A tussle ensued, during which plaintiff tripped, or fell, or was pushed, and she sustained a broken collarbone." She sued for assault and battery, IIED, negligence, and negligent hiring and training. The wrongful conduct rule "is a common law doctrine that precludes a plaintiff from maintaining an action that is based in whole or in part on the plaintiff's wrongful conduct." The rule "'only applies if a plaintiff's wrongful conduct is a proximate cause of his injuries.'" A plaintiff who "engaged in a wrongful act may be able to recover if the wrongful act was a 'remote link in the chain of causation.'" The court noted that "the parties stipulated that plaintiff engaged in shoplifting, which is wrongful conduct." Thus, the only potential factual issue was whether her shoplifting was a proximate cause of her injuries. She argued that summary disposition was inappropriate because her shoplifting was not "the" proximate cause of her injuries. The court concluded that her argument misconstrued "the causation factor of the wrongful conduct rule by blurring the significant distinction between 'a' proximate cause and 'the' proximate cause. The wrongful conduct rule bars an action if the plaintiff's conduct was a proximate cause of the plaintiff's injuries." To determine whether plaintiff's wrongful conduct was a proximate cause of her injuries, the trial court had to determine whether her act of shoplifting contributed to a chain of events that led to her injuries. While plaintiff contended that defendants were liable unless her shoplifting was the immediate and direct cause of her injuries, the court disagreed. Since the record showed that her shoplifting set in motion the chain of events that led to her injuries, "plaintiff's wrongful conduct was a proximate cause of her injuries, and the trial court properly applied the wrongful conduct rule" to dismiss her claims. While plaintiff also argued that MCL 600.2917 presented legal and factual issues that precluded summary disposition, the court disagreed. Assuming that the statute "protects admitted shoplifters, as opposed to suspected shoplifters," the court held that by its terms, "the statute does not apply unless a plaintiff has presented a cause of action against a merchant." Plaintiff failed to support her cause of action - the record showed that her shoplifting was a proximate cause of her injuries. "Absent some evidence that unreasonable conduct by defendants was the proximate cause" - "the one intervening and most direct cause of plaintiff's injuries," the statute did not apply. Since the record contained no such evidence, the statute did not apply.