Do I Have to Pay a Store Civil Demand Letter in Minnesota?

Do I have to pay a civil demand letter from a store after shoplifting in Minnesota? Minnesota law makes a person who steals property civilly liable to the owner for its value plus punitive damages, and it allows the owner to send a written demand for payment before beginning a lawsuit (Minn. Stat. § 604.14). The statute treats the letter as a step that comes before an action, and the liability does not depend on criminal charges. The sections below explain what such a letter can claim and how the surrounding rules work.

Where a store's demand letter comes from

A store's demand letter usually rests on a single civil statute. It provides that a person who steals personal property from another is civilly liable to the owner of the property (Minn. Stat. § 604.14, subd. 1).

Civil liability means money owed to the owner of the property, which is different from a crime. Minnesota defines a crime as conduct prohibited by statute for which a person may be sentenced to imprisonment, with or without a fine (Minn. Stat. § 609.02, subd. 1).

The civil statute speaks of a person who "steals," so a demand letter rests on the store's claim that a theft happened. The statute also uses the word "liable" and refers to an "action," which signals that a dispute over the claim can end up in a lawsuit.

The statute describes a written demand made before beginning an action (Minn. Stat. § 604.14, subd. 6). It does not describe the letter as a court order or a judgment. The letter is a request for payment of a claimed liability, and it precedes any court case.

How much a store can claim

The statute sets the measure of what is owed. The first part is the value of the property when it was stolen. For merchandise taken from a retail store, that value is the retail price of the merchandise in the store when the theft occurred (Minn. Stat. § 604.14, subd. 1).

The second part is punitive damages. The statute provides for either $50 or up to 100 percent of the property's value when stolen, whichever is greater (Minn. Stat. § 604.14, subd. 1).

The two figures work differently depending on the price of the item:

• For a low-priced item, 100 percent of the value is less than $50, so the $50 figure is the greater amount.

• For a higher-priced item, the punitive amount can reach up to the item's full retail value.

The statute therefore builds in an amount beyond the price of the goods. A letter that asks for more than the item's retail price is not necessarily outside the statute, because the punitive component is part of the liability the statute describes.

What a written demand is and what it includes

The statute gives a person the right to make a written demand for payment of the liability before beginning an action (Minn. Stat. § 604.14, subd. 6). The word "may" matters here: sending a demand is permitted, and the statute does not make it a requirement.

The statute also says what the demand includes. It must come with a copy of the section and a description of the liability the section contains (Minn. Stat. § 604.14, subd. 6). A letter that follows the statute therefore shows the text of the law on which the store relies.

Because the demand is described as coming before an action, it is a step that precedes a lawsuit rather than the lawsuit itself. The measure of what is owed comes from the same statute the letter must reproduce, which is why the retail price and punitive damages rules above matter when reading one.

Why criminal charges do not control the civil claim

The civil claim and any criminal case run separately. The statute states that filing a criminal complaint, a conviction or a guilty plea is not a prerequisite to civil liability (Minn. Stat. § 604.14, subd. 4). A store can therefore send a demand even when no charge was ever filed.

A conviction, as Minnesota law defines it, means a guilty plea, a jury's guilty verdict or a court's finding of guilt that the court has accepted and recorded (Minn. Stat. § 609.02, subd. 5). None of those events is needed for the civil statute to apply.

The statute also protects the separation in the other direction. Payment or nonpayment of the civil demand may not be used as evidence in a criminal action (Minn. Stat. § 604.14, subd. 4). The civil demand and the criminal process are treated as distinct tracks.

Returned merchandise, parents and shopping carts

Several other provisions affect how the liability works.

Recovery of the property

When the owner gets the stolen property back, that recovery does not affect liability under the statute, other than liability for the value of the property (Minn. Stat. § 604.14, subd. 5). Returned merchandise can therefore bear on the value portion of the claim, while the punitive damages portion is not removed by the return.

Parents and guardians

The statute addresses the liability of a parent or guardian by applying section 540.18, with the difference that recovery is not limited to special damages (Minn. Stat. § 604.14, subd. 3). A demand letter may accordingly be directed to a parent or guardian in some situations involving a minor.

Shopping carts

A special notice rule applies to shopping carts. To recover under the statute for the theft of a shopping cart, a store must have posted a conspicuous notice describing the liability at the time of the theft (Minn. Stat. § 604.14, subd. 2). That requirement is specific to carts and does not appear in the provisions about other merchandise.