With God’s help, eve of the holy Sabbath, “life and the good”

To M.V. — greetings,

Since presumably you’ll need to come back to the area for a follow-up after the medical procedure you underwent, you can go into the store and buy two cans of Coke, pay for both, and return one of them to the shelf.

In my humble opinion, this is preferable to calling them, as Rabbi Michael Abraham suggested, because the employee who answers may waive it on his own initiative, and who says the owner really forgives it?

With the blessing, “Those who taste it merit life,” Menashe Barkai Buch-Trager

Shimshon Zvi Lewinger, hello,

I’m again asking to clarify with you your extensive use of all sorts of different names.

In the past you objected to a comment of mine that was signed with the name “Shatzal.” As time goes on, you keep adding names and nicknames every day, and I’m worried there won’t be any names left for me for anonymous comments.
Could you limit yourself and stop adding new names every other day?

I had a similar story:
I ordered a glass of wine in a kosher restaurant. Since the waiter was not Sabbath-observant, the wine was served to me by another waiter or employee in the restaurant. For that reason, the waiter who was serving me forgot to put the wine on the bill.
When I got home I found the receipt, and only then noticed that I hadn’t paid for the glass of wine. I called the restaurant, told them the story, and asked for whoever was in charge and had the authority to decide monetary matters. Someone identified himself to me as such and waived the payment.

Afterward I wondered whether I should have called the restaurant about it at all. It could be that the damage was caused by the waiter and he was the one who caused the establishment a loss, so the responsibility is on him. It’s reasonable that the restaurant owners place responsibility for collecting payment on the waiters and not on the customers.
It could also be that the person who waived the payment for me wasn’t actually authorized to do so.
I also wondered whether I had caused harm to that waiter, who may have been hurt by the owners because of his mistake, which ultimately resulted from obeying the kashrut instructions in the place. On second thought I figured that if he was hurt, he had it coming, because it was the result of his own negligence.

Rabbi, what do you say? Should I have called the restaurant? Should I have been concerned that the person who answered wasn’t authorized? Should I have taken into account the harm to that waiter?

You definitely need to call. If it ends up hurting the waiter, there’s nothing to be done. It really was his screw-up.
Still, it’s very preferable to speak with the manager, so that if he waives the money it’s within his authority and responsibility. But if they put you through to a shift supervisor or someone like that, then after the fact you can rely on him too. After all, if he wanted, he could also have waived it for you while you were still a customer in the restaurant itself.

With God’s help, 1 Elul 5782

To Moshe — greetings,

It would seem obvious that the waiter’s mistake does not exempt the buyer from paying for the glass of wine he bought.

I already noted above the problematic nature of calling the restaurant, since it is not clear whether the person who answered you is actually authorized to waive payment. Although there is some logic to say that a store owner who wants his customers to be satisfied would not want to trouble the customer to come and pay.

To the problem with calling, one should add the concern that the owner may waive the payment to you and deduct the price of the glass from the waiter improperly, since this is not even indirect causation, because the customer was willing to pay, and the waiter in fact caused no damage at all. On the face of it, the owner cannot transfer the customer’s payment obligation onto the waiter.

Therefore, in your case too, it is preferable in my humble opinion to return the unpaid purchase price by buying something there next time of the same value and putting it back on the shelf.

Best regards, M.B.T.