Reparations?

[dutifuldaughter]

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate section, so mods by all means move if necessary. Also I think only minor suck may be involved, but I am really looking to see how other CS members would handle the situation.

Yesterday I went on an errand with my friend J, who was picking up a Thing that had been in the shop for months. Said shop is located close to several appealing pubs, so I was happy to keep her company. After picking up the Thing we selected a pub and settled down for a nice lunch, with the Thing carefully placed on one of the chairs at our table. However at some point during the meal, and none of the three of us could tell you exactly how it happened, our waitress knocked the chair the Thing was placed on and it fell to the ground. The Thing itself wasn't broken, but one of its attachments was damaged beyond repair. This cast a pall over what would otherwise have been a pleasant lunch The waitress was very apologetic. and sincerely so, and really nobody saw it coming. There were no rancorous words exchanged.

At the end of the meal J had decided that the pub should pay for her broken attachment, since it was broken by one of their staff members on their property. I told her (drawing, I hope accurately, on what I have learned from reading CS) that she needed to find the manager in that case because it would not be a decision the waitress could make on her own. After we paid the bill I sprinted back to the shop to make sure that they had another attachment, which they did, so the broken part was replaced right away. I met up with J who hadn't spoken with a manager - whether she couldn't locate one or couldn't get a grip on what she had to say, I don't know. She intends to e-mail them about the matter today.

My question is (and I haven't a dog in this fight so I ask out of curiosity), is J entitled to reimbursement, or should she just suck it up? I mean, it was a genuine accident, but an item was irreparably damaged.

If it makes any difference I can add the following:

(1) The attachment cost $30
(2) Our tab before tax & tip was $41
(3) Waitress was tipped 20%, which is the norm around here, service being a completely separate issue

Normally we would have stayed around for a few more beers, but the situation was so awkward that we really didn't feel comfortable doing that. So the pub lost money that way.

Advice, opinions? Anyone? Bueller?

[EvilEmpryss]

I can't see how this is the property's fault. Your friend chose to take the Thing into the pub and rather than place it in a position where it couldn't possibly be damaged by anyone else (like between J's feet or beneath J's chair) it was put in a position where it *might* be knocked over.

*IF* the waitress had maliciously or recklessly acted in a way to damage the item, you'd have a cause to get *her* to pay for the replacement.
*IF* the chair the Thing was resting on was in some way faulty then the management might be tagged to pay for the replacement.

Since neither of these scenarios are true, I can't see how either the waitress or the management of the pub is responsible for paying for the Thing. The cost of the Thing and the amount of your tab are irrelevant... It's a shame that an expensive Thing got damaged and a new part for the Thing has to be purchased, but shit happens, and sometimes there's no one who can be held accountable. I suggest that if the Thing was purchased using a credit card J might explore the possibility that the credit card provides some protection. The only other option is if J has renter's or homeowner's insurance, but J probably doesn't want to mess with those over $30.

[dutifuldaughter]

EvilEmpryss, that was pretty much my take on it, but since the workings of my mind are strange I don't always trust myself to see the big picture. For the record, the nature and size of the Thing meant it really couldn't go on the floor (think antique china platter - obv it wasn't an antique china platter, what with having attachments and all, but still). It was just unfortunate all round. Fortunately a replacement for the attachment was immediately available.

P.S. am so glad your puppy is on the mend!

[Pedersen]

*IF* the waitress had maliciously or recklessly acted in a way to damage the item, you'd have a cause to get *her* to pay for the replacement.

You left out something: If the waitress has acted negligently, then she could be liable for repairs. That is something that is shown time and time again in various courts.

Did the OP's friend screw up? Uncertain. Could be yes, could be no. After all, as was stated, it was something that could not go on the floor. Many restaurants and pubs have tables that don't allow sufficient extra space to store stuff while having a meal. If there was some other place to store it (such as a car), then that might have been a better idea.

Was the waitress negligent? She knocked the chair, the item was knocked to the floor and was damaged. A case could easily be made that she was, indeed, negligent. Had she been exercising due care, she would have seen the item in the chair, known that it was fairly expensive, and therefore would have avoided it (and would have avoided knocking it on the floor). I know that pointing this out will be unpopular, but this is the sort of statement that would be made (and upheld) in court.

Yes, accidents do happen. When someone causes accidental damage, then they attempt to make amends. For instance, you drop and break a glass at a friend's house, you try to find some way to make up for it. It wasn't reckless, it wasn't malicious, it was negligent. An accident. Same here.

Is it worth it? Consider this: If you make $7.50/hr (roughly $15,000/yr), then that repair just cost OP's friend over four hours worth of work (after taxes). So, it might be. That question can only be answered by the OP's friend.

[Aisling]

Yes, accidents do happen. When someone causes accidental damage, then they attempt to make amends. For instance, you drop and break a glass at a friend's house, you try to find some way to make up for it. It wasn't reckless, it wasn't malicious, it was negligent. An accident. Same here.

That's my feeling as well. The waitress should have offered to make amends; that's what I was raised to expect from decent people. But I don't think it's the restaurant's job to make reparations. It's like the parking lots at grocery stores: they don't promise your car will be safe or undamaged, even though they offer you the space to use.

[EvilEmpryss]

Negligent isn't the same thing as accidental... negligent implies a level of knowing and willful disregard for safety. If the waitress was acting with reasonable care to not bump the chair (and who wants to have bruised hips from bumping chairs all day?), then it was accidental. If the item was wrapped in a bag and the chair pushed under the table she may have had no idea where it was or what it was. Even so, it isn't her concern how much it costs, it's the owner's. If the owner of the Thing is so strapped for cash that spending that extra $30 is a hardship (been there, done that, nothing wrong with being poor), then the owner should have taken extra care to protect the Thing... like going straight home with it so there was no chance of it getting damaged by someone else.

While I agree that morally people should try to make amends for the things that they do that in some way harm other people, I do not believe that the waitress was under any legal responsibility to offer to pay for the item. It was a true accident that occurred through an unfortunate series of events: the expensive Thing was placed in a place it could fall from, and the waitress bumped the chair in the normal course of her duties. People in pubs get bumped all the time: the owner should have expected that in a crowded public place such things were likely to happen. I doubt that a judge would hold the waitress completely responsible for the damage, though short of going to court over $30 I don't see how the owner could force the waitress to pay for the damage.

If the owner insists on trying to get any compensation from the waitress, I would think that asking for no more than half the replacement cost would be reasonable. In this case, $15. I still believe that the property is blameless unless there's something else the OP didn't mention.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

J needs to suck it up and deal.

The thing was placed on a chair. A waitress bumped into the chair. Believe it or not, waitresses do occasionally bump into things. That's what happens when they have to run trays full of food through a maze of tables and chairs as quickly as possible.

Putting it under the table probably would've been safer. Or, better yet, taking it home before heading to the pub, if that was an option.

This sounds like a complete accident. I don't see how this accident entitles J to compensation. Sorry.

[MaggieTheCat]

I think the waitress is liable for the damage she caused to the Thing. Yes, it was an accident. Accidents happen and the people who cause them need to take responsibility for their actions. If the waitress had been carrying a plate of food when she bumped in to the chair, and dropped the food on the floor in the process, should the people who ordered the food have to pay for a second order of it? If the food was spilled onto someone's lap and damaged their clothing so that it needed to be dry-cleaned or otherwise specially cleaned, should the person wearing the clothes suck it up and say, "oh, guess I shouldn't have worn that skirt today because it might have gotten spilled on," and pay for the cleaning expenses themselves? After all, it was an accident that the waitress bumped into the chair and spilled food all over someone, she didn't do it intentionally...so does that exempt her from somehow compensating for it?

[bainsidhe]

I guess I'm torn on this. Maggie has a point, if it were a similar yet different situation, we would react differently. Ultimately, it depends how much your friend wants to press the issue. If he/she does, then it's up to the pub to pay for the attachment, not the waitress. Just as if an employee wrangling carts in a supermarket lot accidentally damages a car, it will be the store's insurance/pockets that pays for the damage. Unfortunately, the time to complain was when it happened, not after the fact. You'll be hard-pressed to get anything after the fact.

I'm curious though, how hard was the chair "bumped"? If the Thingie was too awkward to sit on the floor, was it also too awkward to sit properly on a chair? That seems to be inviting trouble. Either way, no one intended or wanted this to happen and it sucks all around that it did. I'm glad it was just the cost of an attachment and not the Thingie itself.

[dutifuldaughter]

Thanks, good people of CS, for weighing in. Like I said, I don't have a dog in this fight, but I am sincerely interested in how people might deal with this kind of situation, from all sides, in case I need to employ that knowledge for myself some day. Every CS post is a learning experience of one kind or another

It was truly an accident, but, as Maggie points out, a dry-cleaning accident would likely be covered. And, as bainsidhe stated, the time to say something was when it happened - not after the fact, and J did not act on that. I spoke to J today and no e-mail has been sent, no phone call has been made. I'm pretty sure she's written it off: it's an unfortunate coincidence that it was just one more bad happening in a week filled with bad happenings for her, so I can see why she might have overreacted. But given that the attachment was replaced almost immediately, no permanent loss has been sustained other than the $30 for the replacement widget.

bainsidhe, the chair holding the Thingie was one of those cheap plastic patio chairs, and regrettably I have no recollection of how hard it was bumped. Not too hard would be my guess, but those chairs are very light. The Thingie is an antique Thingie recently restored and honestly, worse things would have happened had it been on the floor; as it was it had been carefully wrapped up at the shop, laid on the chair (no choice of chair) and bolstered in place with a coat and a bag. Like I said, none of the three of us, J and myself and the waitress, could tell you how it happened, because logically it shouldn't have happened - but it did. At present I am blaming it on the full moon and the partial lunar eclipse.

Really, the only party we can blame is entropy. It was just bad luck all round.

[PepperElf]

my thought is....
could the item have been placed on an "inside" chair... as in one that wasn't close to the path of traffic?

or possibly making arrangements with the store to pick up the item after lunch so you don't have to lug it around?

[Tsiyeria]

If the waitress had been carrying a plate of food when she bumped in to the chair, and dropped the food on the floor in the process, should the people who ordered the food have to pay for a second order of it? If the food was spilled onto someone's lap and damaged their clothing so that it needed to be dry-cleaned or otherwise specially cleaned, should the person wearing the clothes suck it up and say, "oh, guess I shouldn't have worn that skirt today because it might have gotten spilled on," and pay for the cleaning expenses themselves?

That's kind of a different situation. I wouldn't consider ordered food to be the customer's responsibility until it has been safely delivered, and a customer IS required to wear clothes to a pub. This Thing was brought into an area where it was not required to be, and was under J's responsibility the whole time. If sweet tea got spilled on my purse, I wouldn't expect a brand new purse.

I agree with IPF. The Thing could easily have been stowed in the trunk of the car for the duration of the meal, and brought back out to sit in a passenger's lap (or whatever) while driving home.

[Pedersen]

That's kind of a different situation. I wouldn't consider ordered food to be the customer's responsibility until it has been safely delivered, and a customer IS required to wear clothes to a pub.

Well then, let's make it identical. Pub, so they have alcohol. Customer is at the pub, wearing a nice white shirt while drinking a red wine. Customer picks up glass, glass on way to lips, customer's chair gets bumped hard enough that wine gets spilled all over shirt, ruining it (whether because customer is physically weak and can't hold glass through small bumps all the way up through flying tackle type fall from waitress).

Cost is roughly the same (a nice white shirt can go for $30 pretty easily), it's ruined, and the customer did nothing wrong.

By the logic being presented, I am seeing people say that the customer should just suck it up. Granted, it is only $30, and I've screwed myself out of that much money more than once. This time, though, I would have an issue with it. Someone else did something, even though that something was accidental. That something has taken something of value from me.

Why should the someone else not be liable for making reparations? So far, I have seen that J should have taken it home, and then come back out for food. Or should have left his item in a car, or in the original shop, or in the care of the pub's management. J took reasonable precautions:

The Thingie is an antique Thingie recently restored and honestly, worse things would have happened had it been on the floor; as it was it had been carefully wrapped up at the shop, laid on the chair (no choice of chair) and bolstered in place with a coat and a bag.

And it still broke through someone else making a mistake. It doesn't matter if the other person did not want to do it. It still happened, after J had taken steps to try to ensure that it would not. Could J have placed it in a car, or made two trips, or changed the order of his day, or any of about 300 other things to help protect the Thing? Yes, absolutely. Does he have blame in the chair getting bumped, and the Thing getting knocked to the floor? Possibly. Does the waitress have significantly more blame? Absolutely, for one very simple reason: She bumped the chair hard enough that the Thing was sent to the floor.

This Thing was brought into an area where it was not required to be, and was under J's responsibility the whole time. If sweet tea got spilled on my purse, I wouldn't expect a brand new purse.

And if sweet tea got spilled in my shirt, I would not expect a whole new shirt, since sweet tea will just, at most, make for a sticky shirt until it gets washed. J is not asking for a whole new Thing. One piece of the Thing got damaged. He is asking for that one piece to be repaired at no cost to him. How is that at all unfair?

I agree with IPF. The Thing could easily have been stowed in the trunk of the car for the duration of the meal, and brought back out to sit in a passenger's lap (or whatever) while driving home.

You're assuming that a car was involved or available at all. Since "several pubs" were nearby, I'll assume that this is in London, which means public transportation was very likely accessible and being used. Of course, that would also mean no car was available to store this at all.

[elsporko]

It still happened, after J had taken steps to try to ensure that it would not.

Actually, considering it was placed on a weak wobbly patio chair I wonder if enough J had taken sufficient steps to protect the thing. Without knowing what it is we have no idea how easily it would fit on a chair. In a way J was misusing an item in the restaurant since chairs are for people and not antiques. If a customer set a large lamp on a bar stool and complained when it fell then people would say its his fault for putting something on a bar stool that doesn't sit well on a bar stool. Its hard to pass judgment on how well the thing would fit on the chair without knowing what it is.

[Tsiyeria]

Well then, let's make it identical. Pub, so they have alcohol. Customer is at the pub, wearing a nice white shirt while drinking a red wine. Customer picks up glass, glass on way to lips, customer's chair gets bumped hard enough that wine gets spilled all over shirt, ruining it (whether because customer is physically weak and can't hold glass through small bumps all the way up through flying tackle type fall from waitress).

Cost is roughly the same (a nice white shirt can go for $30 pretty easily), it's ruined, and the customer did nothing wrong.

Right. But as I said before, a customer is REQUIRED to wear a shirt inside a pub. This Thing was not required to be there. Therefore I don't see why the restaurant should be held responsible for it. It was J's CHOICE to bring the Thing into the pub.

Does he have blame in the chair getting bumped, and the Thing getting knocked to the floor? Possibly. Does the waitress have significantly more blame? Absolutely, for one very simple reason: She bumped the chair hard enough that the Thing was sent to the floor.

Eh. From what I know of that kind of chair, it's possible she didn't even bump it that hard. Depending on how off-balance the Thing is, or if it's got a flat bottom (I'm assuming not, since it couldn't sit on the floor), factors like that impact how easy it is to knock something off a chair.

And if sweet tea got spilled in my shirt, I would not expect a whole new shirt, since sweet tea will just, at most, make for a sticky shirt until it gets washed. J is not asking for a whole new Thing. One piece of the Thing got damaged. He is asking for that one piece to be repaired at no cost to him. How is that at all unfair?

A) You're splitting hairs here. I used an example.
B) Did the waitress know the Thing was in the chair? Did the waitress know the Thing was an antique, and breakable? Or did the Thing get put in the chair, shoved under the table, and she didn't see it? I think it would be unfair to try to hold her accountable for damaging something she didn't even know was there.

You're assuming that a car was involved or available at all. Since "several pubs" were nearby, I'll assume that this is in London, which means public transportation was very likely accessible and being used. Of course, that would also mean no car was available to store this at all.

While this is a fair point, it's still an assumption. Plenty of pubs in the States, where cars are more ubiquitous. I'm sure that pubs also exist in other areas than Britain/EU.