Victoria Dauzat and Phyllis Jeansonne were shopping at a Dollar General store. Security cameras were in operation at the store that day. A Dollar General employee, Amanda Poarch, commenced observation of security camera footage in the store’s office at 11:56 a.m. Eight minutes later, Poarch called the police to report an alleged “theft in progress” at the store. Poarch stated in this call that she was presently watching Dauzat and Jeansonne steal several items from the store. Police officers arrived at the store at 12:09 p.m. Acting on an identification provided by Poarch, the officers directed Dauzat and Jeansonne to leave the checkout line. The officers then provided the Miranda warnings to Dauzat and Jeansonne. Other shoppers in the Dollar General store at the time included members of the same church Dauzat attended. Following the removal of Dauzat and Jeansonne from the checkout line, questioning of them took place in an office at the back of the store for more than an hour. The two maintained their innocence. Moreover, the video from the security cameras did not reveal evidence of apparent shoplifting. 

Dauzat and Jeansonne, who ultimately were not criminally prosecuted, sued Poarch and Dollar General for false imprisonment and defamation. They based their false imprisonment claim on the detention that occurred following Poarch’s identification of them to the police officers. They based their defamation claim on the theory that false accusations of shoplifting would have been heard by other shoppers at the store and by other members of the tight-knit community on their in-home police scanner radios. The defendants argued that applicable state law included a shopkeepers’ statute of the sort discussed in the text and that the statute should protect them against false imprisonment liability. The defendants also contended that a conditional privilege should apply to Poarch’s report to the police and that they, therefore, should not be held liable for defamation. The trial court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on both claims. The defendants appealed. How did the appellate court rule on the false imprisonment claim? How did the appellate court rule on the defamation claim?