• William Montgomery repeatedly refused to show receipts for his purchases at Denver-area Walmart stores.
  • He sued after he was detained by employees. 
  • Colorado's second-highest court said last week that Walmart can't be held liable for false imprisonment.

A customer repeatedly refused to show receipts for his purchases at Denver-area Walmart stores and sued when employees detained him on suspicion of shoplifting. But Colorado's second-highest court affirmed last week that Walmart cannot be held liable for false imprisonment of the shopper, whose name is William Montgomery, the Gazette first reported.

While shoppers are not legally required to show receipts, a customer's refusal to show their receipt could give a store probable cause to detain them, previous cases have determined. While asking customers for receipts is commonplace at big-box stores like Walmart and Costco as a way to curb theft, it has also caused tension among some shoppers and employees. 

Walmart did not respond to Insider's request for comment on the decision or their policy on checking receipts. Insider was unable to reach Montgomery for comment.

In the Colorado case, "Montgomery sought to create circumstances which would result in Walmart employees reasonably believing he was committing a crime in their presence," wrote Judge Matthew D. Grove in an opinion affirming a previous decision. The Colorado Court of Appeals maintained the decision of a Colorado county judge, who ruled in favor of Walmart last year in five combined lawsuits that Montgomery filed.

The judges of both courts said he visited the stores intending to sue as part of a "sting." Montgomery also called the trips a "sting" in statements to store employees and responding officers, according to Grove's opinion.

Montgomery would buy items from the store, decline a bag "for environmental reasons," and then attempt to walk out of the store without a visible receipt, Grove wrote. If he was stopped and asked for a receipt, he refused to provide it until after he was detained or, in some cases, arrested, according to Grove's opinion. 

"In each case, 'Montgomery entered a Walmart store with the intent to and then actually acted in a manner intended to provoke Walmart employees into believing he was concealing property of the store,'" Grove writes, quoting from the previous decision. 

In Grove's opinion, he mentioned the Shopkeeper's Privilege, a provision in Colorado law that protects stores and employees from liability if they have reasonable grounds to detain and question people they suspect of shoplifting.

In his opinion, Grove quoted from the previous decision noting that "Montgomery was not confined because he 'knew that he could escape without causing an unreasonable risk of harm to him[self] . . . by merely presenting his receipt to Walmart employees."'