Imagine that I take my ladyfriend out for the evening for a fine dinner and a bottle of wine. Being the roguish cad that I am, I excuse myself for the restroom where I escape through the window and hie myself off into the damp night, laughing madly.
Is my (former) ladyfriend legally responsible for my half of the bill? For the full price of the wine? I assume that, regardless of her sad circumstances and broken heart, she is legally responsible for her plate, at least.
Speaking only regarding Florida (the statutes with which I am most familiar), it seems intent is a necessary element:
That only means she won’t be a criminal, not that she won’t be expected to pay. I’ve wondered this myself.
I would say that she is legally responsible for whatever she ordered. Also, if the man ordered on her behalf while she was sitting there without objection, I would say that she is still responsible for whatever was ordered on her behalf. Apparent authority or something.
What about the man’s order? I believe there is a legal principle that an undertaking to answer for the obligations of another person must be in writing. So I guess she is off the hook for the man’s food.
Is gender relevant here? Suppose I (a male) go to a restaurant with a friend (female), we both order meals from the waiter, and she disappears during the meal. Am I obligated to pay for her meal?
(The restaurant doesn’t know whether it’s a date, or if we are perhaps business colleagues having a meal to talk about purely nonromantic matters).
And what if it’s two men, or if it’s two women?
IANAL but I’ll keep the discussion rolling.
In a written lease (bear with me for a minute), there is usually a stipulation that all lessees are individually and severally responsible for the rent. That means two roommates agree to split the rent 50/50 and one person skips town, the landlord can hold the remaining roommate responsible for all the rent. However, there is usually no written agreement for having dinner at a resaurant[sup]1[/sup]. I don’t know if civil law is settled on such a circumstance. There is probably some sort of implied contract bewteen a restaurant and its patrons, but I don’t know what.
If the remaining person could be held responsible only for her share of the meal, then people would figure out that they could conspire to get a meal for half price by one of them ducking out and the other posing as a victim. (Abbey Hoffman wrote of a similar but even more clever anti-establishment scam in “Steal This Book.”)
If the woman had an invitation from the man and had a reasonable expectation that he was going to pay, then if the restarant demanded any payment at all from her she could probably sue her date for it.
Let me guess: Karl Rove used to eat there.
Beats me. It’s called Minibar at Cafe Atlantico. It only seats 8 and they book it many weeks in advance.
My guess; if two or more people arrive and order food together, I think the working assumption will be that they are jointly ordering the food, and they are jointly liable for it. Some restaurants have a policy that they will not make up separate bills for a party of diners, reflecting their understanding that there is only one transaction here.
It may of course be that one member of the party is treating all the others, but if that is not stated there is no reason for the restaurant to make this assumption. Unless it is made very clear to the restaurant, preferably explicitly, that they are contracting with one person, I would have thought that they could seek full payment from any member of the group, and its up to that person to obtain contributions from the others.
I would like to hear what the actual laws are.
IANAL. I would guess this would vary by local state laws. The restaurant would normally expect payment, but the guest may have expected to be treated or at least to split the bill. No contract is signed or money exchanged until the it is too late to return the food. There are probably also laws for when a person eats and is unsatisfied and insists on leaving without paying.
This is not unusual, especially with respect to special events. A few weeks ago I made a reservation at a top restaurant in town for Valentine’s Day. Because it’s a high-demand, high-traffic day, they need an accurate head count, so an advance deposit was required. They’re not unique, either.
I hope we get an answer to this question fom the legal side. There is often a huge difference in what people expect, what the law says, and how those who enforce the laws interpret them.
I know if you pump $20 worth of gas into your car and then drive off without paying, you’ll be pulled over by the cops and ordered out of the car at gunpoint, or tracked down and later charged. I don’t know if the law views eating $20 worth of chicken nuggets and coke then making a run for it as seriously.
There seems to be a very broad range of offenses and penalties for stealing… On one end of the spectrum you can use various approaches to con seniors out of tens of thousands of dollars and the courts will just shrug their shoulders and say there’s nothing they can do. At the other end you can be cuffed, convicted, and jailed for shoplifting a pack of gum. I’d like to know where on that spectrum dining and dashing falls…
Sort of a piggy back question: What if you order the grub but then simply leave before it is served? It’s not like they can “un-serve” it and return it to stock, it’s basically ruined.
IANAL, but my two cents:
I think the restaurant would be totally right in demanding the full bill be paid by whoever’s at the table, because it’s unfair to make the restaurant figure out how the diners split the check. When I go out with my friend, the restaurant doesn’t care if I pay for dinner, or he does, or we split it-it just wants the bill paid.
More importantly, it’s not the restaurant’s problem if we disagree about how to split the bill. Again, it just wants its bill paid-and it’s unfair to make it enforce an agreement it didn’t know about and doesn’t care about.
How is the restaurant to know what the agreement was? It wasn’t a part to the agreement-so I don’t see why it should have to enforce it.
Also, as you note, it looks exactly the same to the restaurant’s point of view if A was expected to pay it all, B was expected to pay it all, or they agreed to split—two people ate, one is here, and she isn’t willing to pay the whole bill. It might reasonably suspect that the OP and his date agreed that the date would pick up the check, the OP left, and that the date is trying to get out of paying the whole bill by blaming the OP.
To change the OP’s example in one little way (to make this clearer):
A and B go out to lunch, and previously agreed to split the bill 50-50. A gets caviar, steak, and champagne, while B has a green salad. Say the total bill is $200, and B’s salad was $10.
The bill comes, and A puts down $100. B puts down $10.
A says “I paid my share, and won’t pay more-that was the deal”
B says “I paid for what I ate, and won’t pay more”
All this does is change the OP by having B pay $10, rather than running out the door. A still didn’t expect B to sneak out on the bill.
This example seems to make the answer clearer-why should the waiter have to resolve this fight? He just puts down one bill, and wants them to pay it.
I think that if the date wants to get the OP to pay his share, that’s between the two of them-not between them and the restaurant.
Quoth CookingWithGas:
If the remaining person could be held responsible for the whole thing, then people would figure out that they could get a meal for free by both of them ducking out and neither being left in the restaurant. So?
I once read about a conman who used a similar scam. He’d walk into a barber shop with a young boy. He’d go first and get his haircut. Then when the boy got into the chair for his turn, he’d say, “Timmy, I’m just going next door to buy a newspaper. I want you to behave yourself and not give the barber any trouble while I’m gone.”
The barber would finish cutting the boy’s hair and wait for the man to return to pay. And wait. Finally, he’d ask the boy “How long do you think your father will be before he gets back here?”
“Oh, he’s not my father. He’s just a guy I met down the street who said he’d give me a dollar if I came in here to get a haircut with him.”