An Alabama woman was awarded $2.1 million in damages from Walmart after she filed a lawsuit claiming that she was wrongfully arrested for shoplifting.

The Mobile County Circuit Court Jury sided with Lesleigh Nurse on the abuse of process claim. However, Walmart won on other claims including false arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, and slander, based on court documents.

Back in November 2016, Nurse was stopped while she left Walmart after purchasing groceries. She told the workers that the self-checkout machine had frozen and needed an employee’s help; however, AL.com reports that the workers allegedly did not believe her explanation.

A year later, Nurse’s case was dismissed for “want of prosecution.”

The Alabama resident said she received letters from a Florida law firm threatening civil action if she didn’t pay an alleged $200 settlement for groceries the workers claimed she stole – an amount higher than the price of the groceries themselves.

The nurse said in her Walmart that the company instructed the firm to send letters like this one out on a regular basis, and she alleged it was part of a larger pattern within the company to falsely accuse shoppers of stealing.

“The defendants have engaged in a pattern and practice of falsely accusing innocent Alabama citizens of shoplifting and thereafter attempting to collect money from the innocently accused,” Nurse’s lawsuit read.

“Walmart funds its asset protection department by intimidating those falsely accused of shoplifting out of making a claim against Walmart out of fear of protracted litigation against an almost limitlessly funded corporate giant,” the suit added.

At the trial, an expert stated that in some states where this move is legal, the company regularly used the practice of charging settlements to those accused. WKRG, a local CBS affiliate reported that according to the testimony, in only two years Walmart made hundreds of millions of dollars using this method.

The defense attorneys for Walmart said that the company’s practices are legal in Alabama.

“We discontinued that program several years ago,” Randy Hargrove, a spokesperson for Walmart, said about the settlement payments. He called them civil recovery. “Civil Recovery statutes exist as one way retailers can recoup losses caused by the tens of billions lost to theft annually, and they are not profit centers. That characterization about our company was not accurate.”

“We continue to believe our associates acted appropriately. We don’t believe the verdict is supported by the evidence and the damages awarded exceed what is allowed by law. We will be filing post-trial motions,” Hargrove said.