The restaurant tab conundrum.

In My Humble Opinion
281

I’m not sure there’s been much disputation of the idea that it’s a good idea to make sure that the restaurant has your payment in hand, or that it would be smarter for the restaurant to take steps to prevent this situation from ever occurring. As that longest reply said (which I read as saying that Bob doesn’t owe a repayment), when a restaurant gets into a situation where the money has vanished like this, it’s due to flaws in the business model and vanishings of this type are therefore a cost of the way they do business.

But yeah, if you’re Bob, your smart play is to wait for a receipt (or just pay with a card). This of course doesn’t mean that Bob is automatically the one on the hook when he does a less smart thing, of course.

282

There is no general moral obligation to take burdens off of people. The only moral obligation in this scenario is that Bob pay for items and service rendered. The only question is whether or not Bob actually paid. If he did, then he is not at fault, and the restaurant didn’t catch the thief, so they are on the hook, same as if someone stole it from the till. If Bob didn’t finish the payment, then he is on the hook, same as if he hadn’t paid in any other way.

I argue that he did pay, as leaving the money on the table is standard practice if they give you the bill but don’t immediately take your money. It’s also the reason tips are left on the table–that’s where the payment took place, so the tips are also given there. People often have places they need to be, and are in a hurry to leave.

On the other hand, maybe this has fallen out of practice where you live–as many Dopers seem to live in a “different world” than my own, with different assumptions. I could see it–people largely pay with cards now, and thus wait for the card to be returned. Maybe servers are so busy they can’t wait for you to pull out your wallet and pull out that card, so they leave. And most of you live in bigger cities, so maybe the idea of a patron stealing the money and getting away with it is not so unthinkable, as it would be harder to monitor and crime is more common in cities. All of this might lead you to reasonably argue that this is no longer standard practice, and Bob should instinctively know that someone might steal the money. That would shift the burden back to Bob.

It’s reasonable, but, I would argue, not practical. Bob will feel like he is being punished by being forced to be out double the amount of money. He is being assumed to be a thief and liar. So charging him when the amount is so small would be more likely to result in Bob no longer attending your restaurant. It would make far more sense to waive the bill this once, but tell Bob that, to make sure it doesn’t happen again, he needs to actually wait until the server picks up the money.

This is true to some extent even if Bob is not a frequent patron, because now Bob would leave a review online, saying that he paid and they accused him of dining and dashing. Sure, some would doubt the review, but it would affect the business.

And if this is a frequent problem, trying to make the customer give the money again is a losing battle due to the above. So it’s on the restaurant to change its practices. Wait the time to get the money. Put a note on the bill saying to please wait for the server to take the payment. Or use other tactics like paying upfront or at the exit. The one thing you can’t count on working is punishing customers for paying wrong, as, again, that would just make them resentful.

(And, no, quibbling over whether it is a punishment doesn’t change the calculation. It will feel like a punishment to the customer, because they had to “pay” twice due to their previous actions.)

283

I wasn’t suggesting people are obligated to take burdens off of people. The burden is Bob’s to begin with. It wouldn’t be cool if Bob were to place HIS burden on someone else.
And I think it been pretty well established in this thread. There are two groups:

One group believes since it’s conventional to leave it on the table, that absolves them of any further responsibility.

The other group believes your obligation does not end until the payment has been received by the waitress (or cashier etc…)

I don’t think we need to hash that part out anymore.

284

Well, I think we do a little bit. Are you going to state that it is not an accepted practice in the restaurant industry for a restaurant to accept payment tendered by a customer leaving cash on the table? Maybe it is different in your area, and as the prior poster said, perhaps that is at the core of our disagreement.

But if you concede that point, then legally payment has been tendered. The facts in the OP put us in “God Mode” where we know Bob has paid, but the restaurant does not know that. Legally, Bob is in the right. Whether he is treated justly in the court system is not guaranteed. Innocent people have been executed in this country, so Bob may be wrongfully required to pay twice, but I thought the issue was not the evidentiary case, but whether he had paid.

And I cited the law and it seems very clear. He tendered his payment by the method which is customary in the trade.

285

Yes, but the first group is wrong. :wink: That’s the issue.

I know people have blown off the mail analogy, but it makes perfect sense for this scenario because, ladies and gentlemen, what is the one thing, the one thing we have all been told never to do when remitting payment via the USPS or other courier service?

Don’t send cash.

Why?

Because it might be stolen, you can’t get it back, and you still owe the bill.

This is the same thing, except instead of using a semi-authorized (but still legally not-responsible for your loss) carrier, Bob just put cash on a table, hoping the least-principled restaurant visitor is more honest than the average USPS employee who notices this standard-mail Forever-stamped envelope has a lot of $20’s in it.

And, in both cases, when the cash gets stolen prior to receipt by whomever he was intending to get it, Bob still owe the money. Because Bob foolishly left/mailed cash and it got stolen in the transitory state between handing the payment off and receipt by the entity to whom the debt (and, yes, Bob owes a debt) is owed.

So, in the above, it’s not just that Bob mailed his power bill payment and it got stolen. Bob mailed his power bill payment in cash and it got stolen.

And if he did that, and came to the SDMB complaining his cash payment was stolen by the mail carrier and that the power company didn’t care and is cutting off his power, what would we tell him?

“Next time, don’t mail cash.”

Which is the proper response in this scenario as well.

Case. Closed. :wink:

286

You keep saying this. The mail is not the same. Please provide cites.

ETA: The mail is carried under a written contract by law. The restaurant bill is not.

287

I read this post as an announcement that you don’t understand the argument being made. Not that you don’t agree - that you don’t understand.

The argument is that placing the money on the table, specifically, is a special case situation, that societal convention (and a restaurant’s acceptance of that convention) have established as being a valid and acceptable method of paying. It is not the case that all possible payment approaches are considered valid - you can’t leave it on the bathroom counter, you can’t walk outside and tuck it in the bushes, you can’t leave it on the table ensconced inside a wallet that you’ve decided to include as an added gift. If you take these approaches then no restaurant will consider you to have paid your bill. But the table is special - a fact proven a trillion times over by the fact that unlike all other places where you might scatter your money, if it’s sitting on the table then it’s acceptable for a server claim it on their own as tip without further prompting from you.

So that’s the situation - leaving the money on the table is a special case that has rules that apply specifically to that method of payment delivery. Making misguided analogies regarding the mail shows that you don’t understand this.

288

Yeah, I see that now. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone to those kinds of restaurants, so it kind of slipped my mind.

289

I never used that language. I would simply say that the argument is poor. I’m guilty of that sometimes as well; we all are. We get an idea in our head that seems to make sense but once you dig into it, it doesn’t.

What I took issue with is your repeated assertion that for a payment to be made, the money must be physically handed to an “authorized agent” of a business, presumably a living human being or else, in all circumstances, the payment has not been legally tendered.

I think that when you dissect the argument, the argument (not you) is an absurd one. Let’s just take one example. I paid my cell phone bill. It was direct debited from my checking account. I never spoke with nor saw a live human being. Was payment not tendered because of that?

290

And as it is late and I cannot sleep, I wanted to comment on the UCC and how it informs this situation. The UCC was (as mentioned before) primarily created for large sales of goods, but it nonetheless applies to any smaller contract. It was meant to supplant the common law harsh rule that a “meeting of the minds” was required for every detail or else the contract would fail.

What the UCC does is provide “gap fillers” that is default rules where the parties neglected to provide specific terms in their written or oral agreement. It is really astounding the number of contracts that each of us enter into every day. You go to the convenience store and buy milk; that is a contract. And even in that little common contract, there are terms that are not orally made nor written but are defined by how we customarily or typically do things.

For example, I would make the offer of a milk purchase by going to the cooler and carrying it to the register. I don’t go to the clerk and ask if she is willing to engage in a milk purchase contract. Custom dictates that I take it to the counter. When I get to the cooler, there is probably a sticker below the shelf where the milk is located that says “$2.39.” I know that is the advertised price of the milk and not some random statement.

When I get to the counter, the clerk rings up my purchase and says, “That’ll be $2.39, please.” She doesn’t ask why in the hell am I putting milk on the counter. She knows from custom that I wish to purchase the item. Further, I either carried cash or a credit/debit card into the store to pay in USD. I know from custom that the store did not accept grains of silver or beaver pelts for milk, even though there was no sign on the door to that effect, nor was I informed by a store employee.

When I hand her $2.39 in cash or swipe a card, that is not a personal gift to the clerk or a donation to the store. That is my tendered payment for the milk. We know that through custom. If I handed a homeless guy $2.39 outside of the store, through custom we know that is a gift to the guy and not an invitation for him to go inside to buy milk.

These customs are all a part of the contract even though they are not written or orally communicated. However sometimes there are misunderstandings and under the common law, the contract would fail. But the UCC comes to the rescue.

Imagine the following. Your friend calls you on the phone and asks if you are in town. You say yes, and he asks if you would pick up his dry cleaning, bring it over to his house and he will pay the dry cleaning bill and you will have a nice dinner together that night. You agree.

You have entered into a contract. Both an extension of credit and a “food for picking up dry cleaning” contract. But how many terms were left out of the contract? How much credit are you extending? Did he dry clean a couple of shirts or is his whole wardrobe there? What is a “nice” dinner? Seven courses prepared personally by Gordon Ramsay including rare French wines and blini and caviar as a starter? Or is it his wife’s special roast beef? Somewhere in between? What if he throws a beef jerky stick at you? Again, you never talked about this or signed a written agreement.

What if he “repays” you by offering a shotgun, or Dutch Gilders, or beaver pelts? Must you accept?

If there is a material misunderstanding on any of these things, under the common law, the contract would fail. Under the UCC, there is gap fillers which rely on custom and reasonableness. Picking up dry cleaning would mean, under this legal regime, a reasonable amount of daily wearable clothing that he took to be cleaned, not his grandfather’s Civil War uniform. Repayment is in USD. For the dinner we use the UCC course of dealing and course of performance. Have you ate at his house before? Does he live in a mansion or a double wide? Is his wife a trained chef?

Long story short, this analysis informs Bob’s contract with the restaurant. The gap fillers in the UCC provide that his payment of leaving money on the table was a reasonable and customary method and therefore was a legal tender of payment. Unlike our dry cleaning contract, we have a clear and undisputed custom of paying a restaurant check by throwing money down on the table. That would inform a judge that such a payment method is a legitimate tender, and it becomes clear that such a payment is a good one. It is especially clear because the restaurant does not (or should not) have any misunderstandings about this term as they accept payment in this fashion all of the time. If they wish to protect against thieves, they can modify this contract term and require payment in person, much like my friend can explicitly tell me that his dry cleaning is the Civil War uniform or that the dinner is hamburgers.

Now, in almost 99,999/100,000 cases these things go off without a hitch and don’t see the inside of a courtroom. But law is made for special cases.

291

BTW, the Restaurant Owners Association came back with:

“Absolutely not! Leaving money on table is the WORST possible way to do it.”

I’m pretty sure I know what this thread is about. It’s about the practice of placing money on the table of a restaurant and leaving prior to any authorized agent picking it up.

… I have provided a 6-page restaurant cashflow procedure outline which does not allow for this practice
… I have provided citations from restaurant owners and consultants who say this practice is not acceptable
… I have argued, from the restaurant owners perspective, that he is the one getting stolen from because he is out the money which is in Bob’s (unpaid for) stomach
… I have shown, using quantum mechanical analogies, than when all is said and done, the food is in Bob’s stomach, the restaurant owner is unpaid, and this is a direct result from Bob’s decision to avoid paying the restaurant directly
… I have provided citations by multiple lawyers who have agreed that the debt is still owed by Bob

I have asked you… all of you on the other side… to go outside the SDMB and prove that this is acceptable policy by restaurant owners. Y’all have yet to do so, citing, at best, the word “manner” in the UCC code. I want manuals. I want signage. I want video showing where restaurants state that they want you to leave money unattended.

I have provided evidence. Y’all have provided arguments. As far as I’m concerned, this one is over. Have fun!

292

So, to conclude, according to actual experts:

  1. Bob still owes the money
  2. Leaving money unattended is not an acceptable practice as stated by restaurant professionals and owners.
293

He was talking about me. He was unable to refute my arguments and resorted to hiding behind my failure to use coddling language. I didn’t bother to reply to his flounce as it had no content and continued to not refute anything I’d written.

Full context:

So you asked “Bob still owes the restaurant, right?” and got the responses “Hell no!” and “Absolutely not!”. Interesting that you choose to interpret this as supporting your opinion.

Now, admittedly, it’s possible that the person posting the ROA twitter account flubbed his negatives. So who knows? Maybe they do support you, despite what they wrote. There’s no way to truly be sure.

They are pretty clear about having payments made by money on the table being the worst way to pay, and they’re right. It’s a terrible way to pay if you want to ensure that some idiot doesn’t claim you still owe them - and if you’re a restaurant trying to ensure that your payments aren’t stolen from you before they make it into the company safe, allowing table payment is the worst way to safeguard the payments that have been made to you. Both statements are true. (And thus you can’t infer which one they meant.)

Which doesn’t imply you understand the counterarguments, of course.

Nobody’s refuting that there are restaurants that don’t accept money on the table. This thread is about restaurants that do.

You’ve argued all kinds of things. And in any case, if the owner charges Bob a second time for the (paid for) food in Bob’s (unpaid for - he brought it with him) stomach, then Bob is the one being stolen from. Somebody’s getting stolen from (there was a thief!); you’ve failed to argue convincingly that it should be Bob rather than the restaurant.

You have shown that you can make terrible analogies, yes.

Their opinions are nice, yet irrelevant. We have a lawyer right here with an opposing opinion.

There is no way to credibly argue that there are no restaurants that accept money and tips that have been left on the table as payment; that’s absurd and so laughable that you discredit yourself right off the bat. That you demand a printed cites for this obvious fact is laughable and discredits you. And the fact that you refuse to accept the law as a cite is telling (and also discredits you).

You’ve provided opinions, irrelevencies, and shitty analogies. Evidence, not so much.

But I agree that your time would be better spent elsewhere, possibly playing video games or something. So yes, have fun!

294

The idea that someone would site UCC codes in small claims court is laughable to me. And I’m not convinced UCC is even applicable in this case.
JohnT has made a rock solid argument in my opinion.

295

Are you sure? Seems like the person is acting as a special agent of his friend for the execution of the contract between the dry cleaner and the friend. Can you cite some law that there’s a contract between the special agent and the friend for performance of the dry cleaning contract?

296

I wonder if I’ve missed it, but has anybody actually cited a court case in this thread?

I must have missed it. What was the argument again?

Honestly, now I’m trying to figure out what the argument could be, other than declaration by fiat. “Sure, I will totally accept money that’s left on the table if I can get my hands on it, but if I somehow don’t, then suddenly it wasn’t mine even though I was absolutely going to treat it as though it was mine. And this is how it will be because it profits me the most! Let it be so! Screw logic, reason, my own business practices, and possibly the law! So mote it be!”

Because that, bad analogies, and groundless opinions (which don’t really seem to be supported by restaurant owners) are all that I recall seeing. My memory not being perfect, of course.

297

It doesn’t matter what the Restaurant Owners Association says. That’s like asking a fox if a chicken has any fundamental right to life. The question is not one of “acceptable policy” or whether they “want” a customer to leave money on the table.

The question is do they accept payment in that fashion. And the answer is a resounding “yes.” If you leave money on the table, do they chase you out into the parking lot and tell you that is unacceptable? Do they have signage telling you not to do that? Does your server tell you not to leave money on the table?

If no (and it certainly is a no) then they have implicitly agreed, by custom, through decades to accept payment in that fashion.

As others have said, if that is not an accepted payment method by a restaurant, then why do they put your money in the till and the waitress takes her tip out of it? If that is the customer’s money who has carelessly left it on the table and it is not a tender of payment, then the restaurant is guilty of larceny if they take it; certainly if they take the tip.

298

This is complete nonsense, and you REALLY shouldn’t be accusing others of making “bad” analogies if this is really your inference of what others have been saying.

299

The idea that it will get to court is laughable. Nobody is going to take time off of work for a $20 restaurant tab. Practically either the restaurant will eat the bill or Bob will pay or they will settle on an amount.

The UCC is certainly applicable in this case and JohnT has not actually made any arguments; he just asked a bunch of people in the restaurant industry if Bob owes the money. That’s not any sort of real argument.

300

The friend agrees:

  1. to extend his other friend credit to pay the dry cleaner.
  2. transport the dry cleaning items to other friend’s house.
  3. other friend will make him a “nice” dinner.
  4. then pay off the “loan.”

You have an offer, consideration, and acceptance. Why would this not be a contract?