n November 2016, Lesleigh Nurse was checking out at a Walmart in Semmes, Alabama when the self-checkout scanner froze mid-transaction. An employee came over to help, but instead of resolving the issue, store workers accused her of shoplifting. Nurse, a mother of three, was arrested and charged. The items in question totaled around $48. A year later, the charge was dismissed after a Walmart employee failed to show up to court. But the ordeal was far from over. Nurse soon began receiving letters from a Florida law firm working on Walmart's behalf, demanding she pay $200 as a civil settlement. She refused. Instead, she sued. In 2021, a Mobile County jury awarded Nurse $2.1 million, finding Walmart liable for abuse of process. During the trial, testimony revealed that Walmart and other major retailers routinely sent these demand letters in states where laws allowed it, and that the practice had generated hundreds of millions of dollars over just a two-year period. Nurse said afterward that she wanted to clear her name more than anything. The arrest had shown up on background checks, affecting her ability to get jobs and volunteer at her children's school