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I called a store to apologize for a actions that involved me. They told me that calling the store violates my ban and breaking their ban is against the law. They threatened to file a trespass complaint on me. Can they do so?

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    In what country, and if a federal country, what state or province did this take place? And who issued this 'ban"? was it simply a request from the store that you not shop there, or was it a restraining order or other court order?
    – David Siegel
    Commented Apr 30, 2019 at 23:26

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This depends on the nature of the "ban" ---i.e., who issued it, what legal power they have, and what it actually requires you to refrain from doing. You say it is "their ban" so I am going to assume that this is just a decision that the store has made not to allow you entry.

If it is indeed the store itself that has "banned" you, this would not prevent you from calling them to apologise for whatever you did. Calling a business on the phone cannot generally be considered a trespass --- at most, if you were to repeatedly call and harass a business over and over again, it might give rise to a nuisance suit. Unless you have extremely strange laws in your jurisdiction, it is almost certainly not against the law for you to call a business that has banned you, a fortiori if this phone call is made for the purposes of apologising for whatever you did that led to the ban.

Although it does not appear to be the situation in this case, if this ban was an actual restraining order of some kind issued by a Court, then it might indeed prevent you from contacting the business (in which case breaching it would lead to an action for contempt of court, not trespass). If a Court were to issue you with an injunction or restraining order of some kind to ban you from a business, then that instrument would specify what you are prevented from doing. You would then need to be very careful to comply with that order.

In short: there is a great deal of difference between a "ban" made by a store as the owner of property, and a ban issued by a court through an injunction or restraining order.

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    The phrase "their ban" was actually inserted by an editor, the OP wrote "my ban". Which is why I posted a comment asking for clarification, rather than an answer.
    – David Siegel
    Commented May 1, 2019 at 1:09
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    Note that even if the store had specifically said "You are banned from this store, never contact us again!", no sane judge is going to find that you were criminally harassing them by trying once to apologize for your behavior, despite the fact that you had gone against their wishes by contacting them.
    – IllusiveBrian
    Commented May 1, 2019 at 3:25
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    No judge would say you committed a criminal act, but any cop would agree you are harassing them.
    – Putvi
    Commented May 1, 2019 at 16:22
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    I find it highly unlikely that any police officer would regard a single call of apology as constituting harassment. If an officer did construe it that way, then he has a very poor understanding of the law on harassment.
    – Ben
    Commented Mar 12, 2020 at 11:29
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It's not against the law to call a store, but if they don't want you to call don't.

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