Court Opinion

ID: 1000030
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2013-07-04 17:34:01.723215+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:19.917702
License: Public Domain

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

MELANIE D. ALLEN,
Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

MONTGOMERY WARD & COMPANY,
INCORPORATED; ASHEVILLE MALL,
INCORPORATED; R.B.R. & S.T., a
                                                                     No. 99-1396
North Carolina Limited Partnership,
Defendants-Appellees,

and

ASHEVILLE L.L.C., a North Carolina
Limited Liability Company,
Defendant.

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of North Carolina, at Asheville.
Lacy H. Thornburg, District Judge.
(CA-98-7-1-T)

Submitted: September 8, 1999

Decided: October 12, 1999

Before WILKINS, NIEMEYER, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

_________________________________________________________________

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

_________________________________________________________________

COUNSEL

Robert E. Dungan, Ted F. Mitchell, ROBERT E. DUNGAN, P.A.,
Asheville, North Carolina, for Appellant. Allan R. Tarleton, Ashe-
ville, North Carolina; Ervin L. Ball, Jr., Asheville, North Carolina, for
Appellees.

_________________________________________________________________

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See
Local Rule 36(c).

_________________________________________________________________

OPINION

PER CURIAM:

Melanie D. Allen appeals the district court judgment granting sum-
mary judgment to the Appellees and dismissing her civil rights com-
plaint. Allen was detained under suspicion of shoplifting while at a
Montgomery Ward department store in the Asheville Mall in Ashe-
ville, North Carolina. Allen was arrested and subsequently charged
with felony shoplifting. The charges were later dismissed. Allen, a
black woman, claimed that Montgomery Ward, Asheville Mall and its
partner, R.B.R. & S.T., violated her rights under 42 U.S.C.
§§ 1981(a), 1985(3) (1994). She also raised pendent state law claims
of false imprisonment and malicious prosecution. Finding no revers-
ible error, we affirm.

We agree with the district court that, based on the surveillance tape
and observations made by security personnel, there was probable
cause to detain Allen. We also agree that there was no evidence that
any of the Appellees purposefully discriminated against Allen
because of her race in violation of § 1981 or§ 1985(3). Because there
was probable cause to detain Allen, she failed to establish that any of
the Appellees are liable for false imprisonment or malicious prosecu-
tion.

Accordingly, we affirm on the reasoning of the district court. See
Allen v. Montgomery Ward & Co., CA-98-7-1-T (W.D.N.C. Mar. 4,
1999).* We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
_________________________________________________________________
*Although the district court's judgment is marked as"filed" on March
3, 1999, the district court's records show that it was entered on the

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contentions are adequately presented in the materials before us and
argument would not aid in the decisional process.

AFFIRMED
_________________________________________________________________
docket sheet on March 4, 1999. Pursuant to Rules 58 and 79(a) of the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, it is the date that the judgment was
entered on the docket sheet that we take as the effective date of the dis-
trict court's decision. See Wilson v. Murray, 806 F.2d 1232, 1234-35 (4th
Cir. 1986).

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