An offer may be accepted by beginning performance, particularly where that form of acceptance has long been customary, as in the restaurant and food service industry. See, e.g., http://www.lexisnexis.com/lawschool/study/outlines/html/contracts/contracts04.htm
But that’s the standard business model of a restaurant. The restaurant experience would work quite differently, in ways that would probably be more of a PITA for both customer and restaurant, if restaurants (including sit-down restaurants and delivery places) demanded payment before they began preparing your food.
An anonymous voice in a speaker saying they think they would like 30 tacos is not a binding contract. If the restaurant chooses to begin preparation in anticipation of that purchase as a matter of expediency, convenience, and competitiveness in the “fast food” industry, that’s just a risk of doing business.
If you got to the window and had forgotten your wallet, decided to change your order to something totally different, examined the food and decided you didn’t want it, ran out of time and just left before receiving the food those wouldn’t be crimes.
If the circumstances made it obvious you had done so just to cause the restaurant a loss it would be a crime. The reason you drove off without completing the order (intent) would be key. Theft of services is for services RENDERED as per the cite above. If you go into a restaurant and leave before the food arrives that isn’t a crime. If you change your mind, send your order back, and order something different that isn’t a crime. If you eat the food, sleep in the hotel room, accept the bag of food, then it is theft of a service not to pay for it.
Notice that I was so good as to provide a citation (admittedly to a Lexis summary of the Restatement). But better than nothing. And Ravenman gave us the text of the theft of service statute.
Perhaps you have authorities that support your contention above?
So tell me, if you gave your order to the person manning the speaker at the drive-through, drove up to the window, handed over your money, and only then did they begin preparing your food, you’d be totally okay with that? Even though it makes the wait, for you and the cars behind you, longer than it would otherwise have been?
I don’t know what the law here is in RI, but I owned a restaurant, faced this situation, and the word from the AG’s office was that this did not constitute theft of service under a criminal statute, however I would have the option of a civil suit, but with little chance of success.
From your cite:
- the actor absconded without paying for the service in circumstances where payment is ordinarily made immediately upon rendering of the service, as in hotels, restaurants, and comparable establishments;
This scenario does not take place in a restaurant. It’s a drive-up, there is no direct contact between the parties, and the food has not been delivered. Even in a restaurant, if you order some food, then get up and leave, the services are not considered to be rendered. As I stated before, businesses that operate in this manner know the risk they are taking. There are a lot of places that won’t take a call-in order without a phone number on the caller ID, or if they can’t call back a phone number to verify. They won’t call the police or sue you if you don’t show up, they just won’t take an order coming from that phone number anymore. Some of the point-of-sale systems are now connected to the phone line and read the caller ID to identify the caller right off the bat.
I appreciate the cite but it didn’t directly support the argument in the context of a car full of people indicating an order at a fast food restaurant and then changing their minds before the food was served to them. Since IANAL, interpreting contract law as it might apply to this scenario is admittedly beyond my expertise. I don’t anticipate being able to find any cite specifically supporting my argument either, that any crime charged in such a scenario would be more likely to be criminal mischief or harassment than a breach of contract or theft of services.
If there were 5 people in the car, nobody provided a name or address or payment information at the time of the order, and the order was made through a drive-up speaker, who is it that would be entering into a binding contract with the restaurant chain? Is there a minimum age limit on the law you say makes this a binding contract or if the occupants of the car were minors does that make a difference? If the customer inspects the food, decides they don’t want it, and refuses to pay are they in breach of contract? Whatever happened to “have it your way?” :smack:
It isn’t really relevant to the question of whether or not it is a crime. They have a process that works best for them including the calculated risk of people changing their minds and not buying the food. Some places inventory their stock, they have a big pile of burgers already wrapped up and ready to go. The food isn’t all cooked to order. Others may very well insist on payment before the food is prepared on large orders or other ‘high risk’ situations like a carload of kids who have driven off without buying the food before. None of that is relevant to the question of it being in violation of a criminal code to refuse the food after saying you wanted it to a microphone in a parking lot.
Well, just to be clear so as not to hijack the thread, breach of contract is not a crime. It’s punishable in civil court by damages.
But as Kimmy Gibler pointed out, it is customary in the fast food industry that when you drive up to the speaker box and say, “I would like 2 Quarter Pounders,” that is interpreted by a reasonable person to mean, “I offer you the price listed on this tote board here in exchange for 2 quarter pounders. Do you accept?”
When the clerk says, “That will be $7.95. Please pull forward.” That is also taken by a reasonable person to mean, “I accept your offer to provide you with 2 quarter pounders in exchange for the price listed on our tote board, which is for your convenience, with tax included, $7.95. We will begin preparing your order. Please pull ahead, pay, and await delivery.”
The reasonableness and customary aspects are necessary to uphold contract law unless we all want to sign lengthy legal documents to purchase a bag of potato chips.
The fact that it’s a microphone at the drive thru is irrelevant. We happily accept telephone conversations as being more than just talking into a microphone, you are using that technology to discuss something with the person on the other end of the link.
Now, the question of whether or not service was provided is sticky because the food was never received. I certainly don’t pay Taco Bell to make tacos, I pay them to give me tacos so that I may eat them and have intestinal distress later in the day.
This prank is the sort of act that should be punishable, but making it so could introduce a lot of unwanted effects.
I don’t make any guarantee about the legal claims made bythis site, but according to them, as I said since my first post in this thread, whether or not it was a crime would hinge on the inten**t. There is probably some theoretical legal basis to speculate that it could be a civil breach of some implied verbal contract but, as **jtgain **noted, that isn’t criminal law. That means the restaurant might be able to sue the customer for damages and win, not have them taken to jail and charged with a crime.
Some posts begin with the assumption that this was a prank. If it was a prank, and the evidence was clearly that was the intent, then that would surely be some kind of crime in most states. Their *intent *would have been to cause the restaurant damage. But the charges wouldn’t likely be a breach of contract or theft of service.
No, it hinges on the statutes of where this occurred, not on intent. As I have cited, Texas law seems to indicate that there is a wider range of dishonest dealings that could violate the theft of services statute. Other states, like Rhode Island as mentioned earlier, may have a narrower statute that only contemplates someone eating a meal and then dashing on the check.
If someone in Rhode Island has the intent to screw Taco Bell and pulls this prank, they may be in the clear for criminal liability because the statute does not cover those actions. If someone does exactly the same thing in Texas, they may be subject to criminal penalties because the law is written differently. I think we all agree that the hellions may be subject to civil penalties no matter where the prank is pulled.
The point is that the statute, if one exists in a given jurisdiction, would outlaw *deliberately *ordering food with the *intention *of not paying for it and leaving the restaurant. It wouldn’t be against ‘ordering tacos and driving away’, it would be against *intentionally *doing so to cause the restaurant financial or other losses.
I’m not sure what you are getting at. Are you worried that if you order tacos and it takes 30 minutes, or comes laden with maggots, or some other legitimate reason not to pay that you will be charged criminally for not paying?
I know of no state statute that provides for criminal penalties for good faith non-payment. And even in a civil context, you can argue that they breached the implied warranty of fitness of the taco (i.e. it is implied that you will get your taco in a speedy manner, fit to eat, etc) and therefore THEY breached the contract.
It seems as if you are worried of some sort of slippery slope that I don’t see here.
It seems that most states include in their laws that if you acquire services from a restaurant, hotel, or similar establishment, but do not pay, that the intention to break the law shall be presumed. See my cite for one example.
Using a slightly different case than what the OP talked about, if someone went into a sit-down restaurant and ate a meal, then skipped on the check, it seems that most states’ laws would direct the judge or jury to presume that the patron intended to shaft the restaurant without further evidence of his state of mind. Of course, the defendant could offer evidence to rebut that presumption.
How does that hurt the operator? Once you pay for your ice cream cone, you can shove it up your ass if you feel like it. It’s yours.
Bold mine, wasn’t fast food preparation officially reclassified during the Bush administration as manufacturing and not service (to bolster US manufacturing numbers or something), so if it’s classified as manufacturing it can’t be theft of service.
Yes, I think this is the heart of the application of any criminal charge. If one of the stupid teenagers brags on his facebook page how he intended to cause harm to the Taco Bell (by ordering food not intended to be paid for), they might have a case even here in RI. But otherwise, how do you prove intent? Someone can say they realized they didn’t have enough money and left in embarassment. Taco Bell can spend $3000 trying to sue them for $30, but it’s unlikely they would bother, and it’s still questionable whether there’s a contract. In most exchanges at a drive through there’s no communication after the price is given. I don’t think that’s a contract unless you give some some acknowledgement that you’ll pay that price. The Taco Bell could certainly wait 15 seconds for the car to pull up the window before starting to cook some food. And I’m sure this order was a tiny fraction of the total food loss for Taco Bell that day.
What services did the order-and-leave people acquire at the drive-through scenario? I just can’t see a district attorney thinking theft of services would stick.