Document text
Old jeans lead to $6.6 million suit Medford men take Sears to court over treatment by security guard By David Preszler Five old pairs of Lee jeans and 10 old felony convictions are at the center of a bizarre multi-million-dollar civil trial that began Thursday in Medford. Two Medford men are seeking up to $6.6 million in damages from Sears & Roebuck in the wake of a 1995 confrontation with a store security manager that allegedly injured one customer, Thomas Burns, and ended with both men arrested. The customers, Burns and Michael Turpin, were acquitted on criminal charges brought by the store following the incident. The security manager, a former California cop named Thomas Gonzales, turned out to have 10 felony convictions that Sears claims it didn�t know about. But in their suit, the men argue that the store should have known about Gonzales criminal background. "When Sears hired Tom Gonzales to be a loss-prevention agent, they didn�t exercise enough care in hiring him to protect the public," David Gilstrap, Burns� attorney, argued in opening arguments Thursday. Bob Cowling, the attorney representing Sears, said the store made efforts to check Gonzales� background. Cowling challenged Burns� injuries and the roles Burns and Turpin played in the altercation. The two men are seeking damages related to the incident and the criminal charges they faced � and were acquitted of. They also seek up to $2.5 million each in punitive damages. The trial will continue into next week. The confrontation unfolded Aug. 28, 1995, when Burns went to Sears in Medford packing five pairs of old Lee jeans that he was convinced had worn too quickly and were defective. Burns had arranged with Lee to exchange them at Sears, his attorney said. After several waits and delays, he arranged to meet a manager in the men�s department. That�s where he met Gonzales. According to Burns� attorney, the "big, tough ex-LA area cop" was belligerent. He told Burns the store would not exchange the jeans and asked him to leave. Gonzales then grabbed the shorter, older man by the arm and was "whipping him around like a rag doll," the attorney said. The two parted ways, and Gonzales called Medford police. Minutes later, however, Burns and Gonzales tussled over the jeans, and Gonzales pinned Burns down. That�s when Turpin, who did not know Burns, got involved. Turpin was in the store to see a manager about a tire dispute and witnessed both confrontations. He got involved as a "good Samaritan" when he saw Gonzales grab Burns the second time, his attorney Lee Werdell said. Turpin, then in his mid 20s, tried protect the older man and pull Gonzales off Burns. Eventually, the three tumbled to the ground. Medford police arrived and arrested Burns and Turpin, who were eventually taken to jail. The store filed charges of trespassing, disorderly conduct and harassment against Burns, and of assault, disorderly conduct and harassment against Turpin. Both were later acquitted and are seeking damages for emotional trauma. The incident left Burns with a back injury that keeps him from working and high-blood pressure problems, his attorney said. Burns and Turpin plan to testify in the trial. Gonzales will not; his account will come from a written disposition. That�s because Gonzales is serving a two-year federal sentence on child pornography charges that got him fired by Sears. He was arrested in 1997 and sentenced in October 1998. Since that conviction came after the 1995 altercation, however, it won�t be part of the current case. But the rest of Gonzales� criminal background � and why Sears didn�t learn of it before hiring him in November 1993 � clearly will be. Sears apparently didn�t check with Gonzales� past employers. If they had, Gilstrap said, they might have discovered that he had been fired in May 1993 by a Lake Tahoe-area Kmart after assaulting a customer suspected of shoplifting and purse snatching. With a little more effort, Gilstrap said, Sears might also have discovered Gonzales� convictions for theft, perjury and being an ex-con in possession of a weapon. Sears� attorney Cowling said the company did have a background check done, but it turned up no criminal record because the convictions were old. The last felony conviction was in the mid 1980s; under federal law, convictions more than seven years old don�t show up on standard checks. As for checking with previous employers, Cowling noted that many companies, including Sears, don�t give out information about employees, so checking references is of limited value. While the plaintiffs� attorneys portrayed their clients as "innocent shoppers," Cowling raised questions about both men�s behavior, noting that both came into Sears that day unhappy with the store. Cowling suggested that Gonzales acted in a reasonable fashion and that Burns escalated the confrontation. Much of the case is expected to hinge on a surveillance tape that captured the second and more serious confrontation between Burns, Gonzales and, eventually, Turpin. Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA