The malicious prosecution case, the foundation of that is when an individual is prosecuted on a suspicious basis without a good faith basis and is then found not guilty at the criminal trial. If that occurs, under the appropriate circumstances, you can then file a lawsuit against the entity that caused and sought the charges to be filed. For example, I represented a nice young fella who was at a local, large chain grocer getting some – a couple snacks to eat.

He was on his way out. The security staff confused him with another individual, thought he had stolen some material. He very nicely tried to tell them he hadn’t stolen anything. He offered to let he individuals search him, which they refused to do. They then became very rough with him. They then called the Chicago police department. He was arrested and charged with theft. The case went to trial in the criminal courts.

It was dismissed because they couldn’t prove that he had stolen anything, obviously. He then retained me. We sued the grocery chain for malicious prosecution for insisting that these criminal charges go forward when in fact they had a pretty good idea that he was absolutely not the right guy.