“Mitchell said his client, a regular customer at the restaurant…”
That’s likely how the checker knew, not necessarily from accent or dialect.
Well said.
(I also don’t see defamation here. Defamation needs publication to a third party. I also don’t think that calling someone a name is defamation. I suppose I could come up with a scenario where I could shoehorn this into a defamation claim, but it wouldn’t be my first choice.)
My receipt said “fatass” in the name field. Of course, I did order the xtra large quadruple-stuffed cheese deluxe.
ROFLMAO 
With a small diet coke of course!
heh. Okay, minor hijack of my own thread here… (Not bad, eh?)
JuanitaTech, thanks for the word help!
double-o, laughed at your post. The minor hijack is just some justification on my part- I know it looks weird when someone orders a big meal and a diet soda, but speaking for myself, I do it because I’ve had to cut processed sugar out of my diet.
Oh, and because I’m one of those freaks who can’t tell the difference between sodas by taste.
Giggling!!! Okay, but come on, if I remember right, THIS “Benson” had a rather “hoity toity” pattern of speech, I don’t think I would have known he was black over the phone.
I reallly think the “black” voice thing is silly. Unless the person is, as I said, one of the silly young “gangsta” types with that obnoxious “’ 'Suuuup” slang/accent thing going on.
Or, unless they’re one of those warm, sweet tell it like it is “sister” types (sorry, stereotype, I know, but it’s a good one, and I met so MANY of this type when I was in basics seems like a fair bet that there are a lot of black girls like this), with the “girlfFRIEND, let me TELL you about that man”!! type accent.
Anyway, I guess that what I’m fumblingly trying to say is that unless they DO fit some known (TV culture) type stereotypical “black” voice, I wouldn’t know the difference over the phone.
Oh, okay! Thanks lieu for finding that, I missed it my first read.
And my second. But, when I went back and read it again, I noticed that it said something to the effect “he stopped by after work to pick it up…”.
So, if he phoned it in beforehand, the article doesn’t say. But if he didn’t phone it in, then at what point would the order taker have been able to enter the slur under the “name” field??
Like others are saying, this sounds way fishy, needs more facts.
When he saw the receipt… or when he ate the pizza? Seems if he were such a regular customer, he wouldn’t be so regular. Which would lead to his being physically ill. I wonder if this happens a lot.
Odo! Neelix! Quark!..oh, wait…maybe that’s not Quark…take off the blond hair, slap on some big ears…
Quark!
I’ve tampered with mcdonald’s receipts before… but nothing vulgar… (one example: “Cream and sugar go well with coffee!” )basically, any manager (or crew with a manager passcode) can change it… However, I did cause more randomness… every Tuesday, instead of ‘Welcome to McDonald’s’, it says ‘Have a super day!’ completely inoffensive, and no one’s even noticed it yet, even though the registers have been like that for over 6 month… The receipts always got noticed after a day or two… but I stopped that after 2 or 3 times… afraid of getting caught.
His wife allegedly saw the alleged receipt. There’s your publication to a third party. Additionally, if any employee other than the one who allegedly typed in the racial epithet saw the receipt, that’s also publication. Agree with you that calling someone a racial epithet shouldn’t qualify as defamation.
I had a woman come into my office about 6 months ago, whe had gone down the street to a pizza place where when you order to go, they put the slice on a paper plate and cover it with another paper plate.
When she got back to her office and picked up the slice someone at the pizza place had drawn (acutally quite good drawing) of a penis and testicles (testicles were hairy).
I wish we had thought to sue. As it was, I called the place, reported the incident and told the guy I expected it would hurt his business some. Another guy went down to the store with the woman and they apologized (But didn’t even offer to pay for pizza).
Although that picture didn’t make me physically ill; well I’m a white guy.
Well, some employees should be fired. And the guy should definately get a check.
But 2 million? No. Maybe 2 thousand and some free pizza.
I agree with double-o-seven, though. It sounds like a scam.
Reminded me of this story of over a year ago. I expect that there’s a thread about it somewhere, but I didn’t search for it.
From Ferris’ link:
As a worker bee for a phone company, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve wished we could put this kind of charge on customer accounts…
We had something similar in Madison a couple of years ago, at a vet’s office. The staff was putting two-letter codes on patient files to describe the pet owners. “DC” for difficult customer" and the like. Nothing vulgar, though, and IIRC it somehow managed to get resolved without people reaching for their attorneys.
When I worked in a vet office, we did codes with what color ink we used. Black for normal, green for difficult customer. Red ink meant the animal would bite.
CanvasShoes said:
Others then posited that the slur was determined based off of vocal cues over the phone, because the name is only typed when taken over the phone.
That wasn’t my first conclusion. Several restaurants I go to regularly (though none of them are a Pizza Hut) take your name when you place your order, and then print that name on the receipt. The register biscuit could have entered in something different, not thinking through what might happen if anyone else saw the receipt. But it’s just a hypothesis, until more information comes through.
I work at Pizza Hut. When we take your order, your order is printed on a little piece of paper. It has your phone number and name and what you ordered and your total. If its for delivery it has your address and how you are paying. Its VERY simple to just type in whatever. You can change the persons name on the acct whenever you like too. You just need the ticket number or the phone number that the person gave you. Sometimes if I forget to ask the persons name I just type in “customer”. Now, about 6 months ago my old manager was saying a Pizza Hut in our area(not ours) got in a lot of trouble because one of the employees typed in “FAT LADY” for the customer name. The thing is, we shout out the name of the people who ordered to pick up their pizza. Well…apparently someone did end up shouting out “Fat lady”. The lady didn’t get up. After 20 minutes she comes to find out where her order is and someone told her it was under Fat Lady. I don’t know if she sued, but we are cautioned on what we put on our tags. The thing that puzzles me is we USUALLY dont’ give out the tickets with the order unless you ask for them. So the guy must have asked for his receipt. I’d say only 3 out of 100 ask for their receipt.
A while back, I phoned an order in to Domino’s and gave our last name only. Now, our last name has four syllables, and if you spell it phonetically, it can be read as two first names (both male). Which is how it came out on the typed receipt.
I get the same thing in reverse. My first name is “Mac,” and people always think it’s part of my last name.
“May I have your name?”
“Mac Smith.”
“Alright, Mr. MacSmith, may I have your first name?”