Catherine Rusoff
Actress Angie Harmon filed a lawsuit against Instacart and one of her former shoppers who shot his dog dead in March while delivering groceries to her home in North Carolina.
The lawsuit filed late last week in Mecklenburg County seeks to hold the shopper and Instacart liable on charges of trespassing, gross negligence, emotional distress and invasion of privacy, among other allegations. It accuses Instacart of engaging in negligent hiring, supervision, retention and misrepresentation. The lawsuit seeks monetary compensation, to be determined at trial.
Instacart says the shopper has been permanently banned from its platform.
Harmon is known for her work on TV shows including “Law & Order” and “Rizolli & Isles.” She told “Good Morning America” in an interview that aired Wednesday that it was “so incomprehensible to think that there’s someone in her garage who just fired a gun.”
“I think Instacart is more than responsible for all of this,” Harmon said in the interview. “That didn’t need to happen.”
According to the complaint, Harmon ordered an Instacart grocery delivery from a Charlotte store on March 30. The Instacart app showed a shopper named Merle with the profile photo of an older woman, with whom Harmon believed she was texting about her order, the lawsuit says.
Later that day, Harmon was upstairs filling her squirrel feeders when a “tall, intimidating younger man,” not an older woman, showed up to deliver the groceries, the suit says.
Harmon said he heard a gunshot and ran outside. She discovered that her dog, Oliver, had been shot and saw the delivery man putting a gun down the front of his pants, according to the lawsuit. His teenage daughters, who had already left home, were “in danger,” the document says. The dog died at the veterinarian’s office.
The buyer told police he shot the dog after it attacked him, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department told news outlets, adding that it has not filed criminal charges.
In an Instagram post last month about the encounter, Harmon wrote that the buyer “did not have any scratches or bites, nor were his pants torn.”
Instacart says it immediately suspended the shopper after receiving the report about the shooting and later removed him permanently. The company says it performs comprehensive background checks on buyers, prohibits them from carrying weapons, and has anti-fraud measures that include periodically requiring them to take a photo of themselves to ensure the person purchasing matches the photo on file.
“Our hearts remain with Ms. Harmon and her family following this disturbing incident,” Instacart said in a statement. “While we cannot comment on pending litigation, we do not tolerate violence of any kind and the buyer’s account has been permanently disabled from our platform.”
