Legal Question in Business Law in Virginia

Re: Restaurant walkouts

Probably not, unless they are somehow at "fault" or complicit in the "old dine and dash."

Re: Restaurant walkouts

By LAW or by comnpany POLICY?

Most restaurants, by my unscientific random experience, DO make waiters and waitresses responsible for the check.

There is no law that makes this necessary or proper. This is purely a question of company policy, not any law.

I suppose the theory is, like Cary mentions, that it is part of the server's job to watch and make sure people don't escape without paying. So if they let the person escape, then they have not done part of their job.

I would say this is very questionable legally. If someone ever bothered to challenge this legally, I suspect that a restaurant would lose.

The restaurant has to pay a minimum amount per hour. It is sad that the government applies a reduced minimum wage to servers. But they do have a lower minimum they must pay.

If they deduct the cost of bad accounts, they are not paying the required minimum per hour. The net after dedcuting the bad check is below what is required under the law.

So I don't think a business has a right to place the burden of its cash-management and payment system on the individual server.

Furthermore, it is a crime in Virginia to "dash and dine." Therefore, the restaurant CAN go after the offender and get their money back. That might require having cameras where people come in and also in the parking lot to identify people. But it is possible for the restaurant to go get their money back by going after the offender.

Although the theory is that it is part of the server's job to stop people from leaving, in reality a server COULD NOT tackle more than 1 person or even 1 person and physically prevent them from leaving. So even if you saw someone dashing without paying, what would you do about it?

So I think I could beat a restaurant on that.

But the problem is that no server wants to risk their job over a relatively small amount of money. Since employment is "at will" in VA, the restaurant could probably fire the person, at least on some other excuse.

Perhaps it would take a server who LEFT that restaurant to go back and sue for his or her money back to establish the idea. Or perhaps it would take a class action lawsuit.