Recourse for Store Employee Intimidation After a Parking Lot Accident

Attorney Answer

Rude, aggressive, or humiliating treatment by store employees is not by itself something you can sue over — but if they physically threatened you or kept you from leaving, those are real claims, and they expire sooner than most people assume.

Missouri splits these torts across two different limitations statutes, and the split matters more than anything else here. Mo. Rev. Stat. § 516.140 sets a two-year period for libel, slander, injurious falsehood, assault, battery, false imprisonment, criminal conversation, and malicious prosecution. So if what happened to you was a threat of immediate physical harm (assault), unwanted physical contact (battery), or being blocked, detained, or told you could not leave (false imprisonment), your clock is two years — not five.

Mo. Rev. Stat. § 516.120(4) sets a five-year period for "any other injury to the person or rights of another, not arising on contract and not herein otherwise enumerated." That is the provision that covers intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress. Emotional distress claims are genuinely hard in Missouri; conduct has to be extreme and outrageous, and ordinary rudeness, accusations, or a hostile confrontation usually will not meet it.

There is a practical point too. If employees acted within the scope of their jobs, the store can be a defendant alongside them, which usually matters more than suing an individual employee.

What you can do

1. Write down exactly what was said and done, by whom, and in what order — especially anything about being stopped, surrounded, blocked in, or physically touched. The distinction between insults and confinement decides which claims exist. 2. Send the store a written request to preserve the parking lot and interior surveillance video, by email or certified mail, today. Most systems overwrite within weeks. 3. Get the names of any witnesses and of the employees involved. 4. If you were injured or shaken enough to need care, get seen and let the record reflect what happened. 5. File a written complaint with the store's corporate office and keep a copy of what you send and any reply. 6. Have a Missouri lawyer look at it on the two-year assumption, not the five-year one.

⏱ Time limits apply. Mo. Rev. Stat. § 516.140 gives two years for assault, battery, and false imprisonment, while Mo. Rev. Stat. § 516.120 gives five for other personal injuries. Which one governs depends on how your facts are characterized, so treat the shorter one as your deadline.