OXNARD : High Court Won’t Hear Target’s Appeal

The state Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal of a $5-million judgment against Target Stores stemming from its dismissal of four employees at its Oxnard store who said they were falsely accused of theft.

The 1990 judgment by a Ventura County Superior Court jury was upheld in May by the 2nd District Court of Appeal, which called the company’s conduct reprehensible. In a decision disclosed Tuesday, the Supreme Court refused to consider overturning it.

The four men, all employees of the store’s automotive department, were fired in 1984 after an investigation into theft at the store. According to trial testimony, each man was forced to sit in a room for up to four hours while a company security official interrogated him individually.

Intimidation tactics included having the employee sit in the corner farthest from the door while the interrogator sat less then three feet away, according to trial testimony. In some cases, the interrogator would claim that the employee had been videotaped while stealing, although there were no tapes.

The employees were threatened with arrest unless they confessed, and all of them eventually signed confessions that they later said were coerced and false. Their attorney, John H. Howard, said the alleged thefts involved such things as giving $5 worth of free wheel balancing to a customer who had been forced to wait two hours.

Howard said Target could take the case to the U. S. Supreme Court because the appeal has claimed that California’s rules governing punitive damages violate the U. S. Constitution. Gordon A. Letter, attorney for Target and its parent company, Dayton Hudson Corp., declined to comment on the possibility of a further appeal.