DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — A metro Atlanta woman has sued Nordstrom, alleging store employees wrongly accused her of shoplifting, physically detained her and pushed her through the department store before realizing they had mistaken her for someone else.
Dr. Naomi Black filed the lawsuit earlier this month, claiming the incident happened in July 2025 at the Nordstrom store inside Perimeter Mall while she was preparing for an overseas trip.
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Black said she had been shopping for items to take to Bali and was carrying a shopping bag when two women approached her near the store’s exit.
“She said, ‘Ma’am, you can’t leave the store,’” Black recalled.
According to the lawsuit, the women blocked Black from leaving. Black alleges one employee grabbed her arm while another pushed her through multiple levels of the store.
“I told her, do not touch me,” Black said.
Black said neither woman identified themselves as a Nordstrom loss prevention employee or explained why she was being stopped.
“I kept wondering in my head, what did I do wrong?” she said.
Black said the employees escorted her into a private room, where she repeatedly asked why she had been detained but did not receive an explanation.
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“I noticed that there were a pair of handcuffs on the table,” she said.
Black said employees searched her shopping bag but found no stolen merchandise.
“She looked through my bag and they didn’t find anything,” she said.
According to Black, an employee later told her she had been mistaken for someone else.
“I’m gonna ask you again, why did you accuse me of shoplifting?” Black said she asked. “And she’s like, ‘Oh, we just thought that you looked like someone else.’”
Black said she was released without an apology.
“I felt violated and I also felt fear,” she said. “What they did to me was unacceptable.”
Her attorney, Candace Atlas with the Davis Bozeman Johnson Law Firm, said Georgia law allows retailers to detain suspected shoplifters only when they have reasonable grounds to believe a theft has occurred.
“We don’t believe any of those circumstances or those requirements were met in this circumstance,” Atlas said.
The lawsuit seeks damages and alleges Nordstrom employees acted negligently in detaining Black. Black also alleges employees provided her with a false name for the store manager and seeks changes to employee training to prevent similar incidents.
Channel 2 Action News contacted Nordstrom by email earlier this and again on Thursday seeking comment. The company had not responded at the time of publication.
Under Georgia court rules, Nordstrom has 30 days after being served to file a response to the lawsuit.
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