CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Actress Angie Harmon has filed a lawsuit against Instacart and considered one of its former shoppers who fatally shot her dog while delivering groceries at her North Carolina home in March.
The lawsuit, filed late last week in Mecklenburg County, seeks to carry the consumer and Instacart chargeable for trespass, gross negligence, emotional distress and invasion of privacy, amongst other charges. She accuses Instacart of negligent hiring, monitoring, withholding and misrepresentations. The lawsuit seeks monetary damages, which can be determined at trial.
According to Instacart, the consumer has since been permanently banned from its platform.
Harmon is understood for her work on television shows resembling “Law & Order” and “Rizolli & Isles.” she told ABC News that it’s “so unbelievable to imagine that there is someone in your driveway who has just fired a gun.”
“I feel Instacart is just not accountable for any of this. That didn’t must occur,” Harmon said in the interview that aired Wednesday on “Good Morning America.” ABC News described the dog as a “beagle mix.”
According to the criticism, on March 30, Harmon ordered an Instacart grocery delivery from a store in Charlotte. The Instacart app showed a client named Merle with a profile photo of an older woman with whom Harmon believed she was exchanging text messages about her order, the lawsuit says.
Later that day, Harmon was filling her squirrel feeders when a “tall and intimidating younger man” reasonably than an older woman showed as much as deliver the food, the lawsuit says.
Harmon said she heard the sound of a gunshot and rushed outside. She discovered that her dog, Oliver, had been shot and saw the delivery man putting a gun in his pants, in line with the suit. Her teenage daughters, who had already been outside, were said to be “in distress”. The dog died within the vet’s office.
The shopper told police that he shot the dog after it attacked him, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police told news outlets, adding that no criminal charges were filed.
In an Instagram post last month in regards to the encounter, Harmon wrote that the customer “did not have a scratch or bite and his pants were not torn.”
Instacart says it immediately suspended the consumer after receiving the report of the shooting and later permanently removed him. The company says it conducts extensive background checks on buyers, prohibits them from carrying weapons, and has anti-fraud measures in place that include requiring them to take a daily photo of themselves to make sure the person making the acquisition is with their saved information Photo matches.
“Our thoughts continue to be with Ms. Harmon and her family following this disturbing incident,” Instacart said in an announcement. “While we cannot comment on pending litigation, we do not tolerate violence of any kind and the buyer’s account has been permanently deactivated from our platform.”
