McNeely v. The Home Depot Inc.

The defendants had probable cause, under the circumstances, to suspect that the plaintiff was involved in a scheme to steal money from a Home Depot store and that he hid a money bag in the transfer room when he went to verify and pick up the store's deposits.

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Charles McNeely sued The Home Depot, Inc., Home Depot U. S. A., Inc., and a Home Depot employee for malicious prosecution. The defendants moved for summary judgment, which the trial court granted. McNeely appeals. For reasons that follow, we affirm. Summary judgment is proper when the evidence, construed in a light most favorable to the nonmovant, demonstrates that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.1 Viewed in this manner, the record shows that McNeely was employed by Brinks, and he was responsible for retrieving cash deposits from a Home Depot store.

According to the record, the Home Depot store had a vault room that was connected to a transfer room by a two-sided transfer safe. Under Home Depot’s store policy, employees assigned to the vault room would count deposits before putting the money in a marked bag and placing the bag in the transfer safe. The deposits were logged in, and the log sheet was also put in the transfer safe. When a Brinks employee arrived, he would enter the transfer room, for which only he and select Home Depot managers had keys. He would open the two-sided transfer safe from inside the transfer room and compare the deposits in the safe to those listed on the log sheet. The Brinks employee would then verify that the deposits in the safe matched those on the log sheet, and he would sign the log sheet to indicate that he had picked up the deposits.

McNeely v. The Home Depot Inc.

The defendants had probable cause, under the circumstances, to suspect that the plaintiff was involved in a scheme to steal money from a Home Depot store and that he hid a money bag in the transfer room when he went to verify and pick up the store's deposits.

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