Manager should charge you a storage fee.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Have you thought of a position in Customer Service?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
They look dorky. Probably OK for tiny town, but not fashionable.

This one is on you. It sucks you’re out but it’s also your fault you left your property behind.

It's been an expensive lesson, but if all I've lost this week is a little cash, I'm okay with that.

I called the restaurant this morning to see if perhaps the glasses had been found. Not kidding, but as I'm asking for Carmelo, I could hear him instructing the young man on the phone to say he wouldnt be at the restaurant all week. I couldn't quite believe that I actually heard him say that. I was puzzled because our conversation in person the day before was nothing less than cordial.
I take that as a sign he's no longer interested in speaking with me

I'm kind of late to this thread, but to answer the OP's questions, yes, I think the restaurant is responsible and owes you a pair of sunglasses. I would answer differently if days or weeks had passed, but you say you called him shortly after you left the restaurant.

The restaurant owner/staff are not legally entitled to anything that is mistakenly left there. When the owner told you he had your glasses, and would hold them for you, he had a duty to do so. Whether or not you want to go after him for the value is your decision.

I own a retail store, and if someone called looking for a forgotten item, and it was found, I would certainly hold it for the person. (and I would lock it up). And if having done so it turned up missing, I would certainly feel responsible.

Legally speaking, the restaurant owner was not responsible for finding them, but since he did find them, he had a duty to exercise reasonable care in holding onto them, at least for a reasonable time. Losing them by the very next day was a breach of that duty. Of course state law can vary, but I do think this is most likely the correct legal decision. If the OP had waited two weeks to go back and they couldn't find them, I'd have a different opinion.

Yes, "no good deed goes unpunished" may apply here, but that doesn't change the legalities. And if I'd heard that MoFo tell his employee "I"m not here", you bet your ass I'd make him buy me a new pair of shades!

quote:

Originally posted by honestlou:

Yes, "no good deed goes unpunished" may apply here, but that doesn't change the legalities. And if I'd heard that MoFo tell his employee "I"m not here", you bet your ass I'd make him buy me a new pair of shades!

What specific legalities are you referring to?

It they were that important I would have made the trip back immediately instead of “in a day or so” as convienient.

quote:

Originally posted by honestlou:

The restaurant owner/staff are not legally entitled to anything that is mistakenly left there. When the owner told you he had your glasses, and would hold them for you, he had a duty to do so. Whether or not you want to go after him for the value is your decision.

....

Legally speaking, the restaurant owner was not responsible for finding them, but since he did find them, he had a duty to exercise reasonable care in holding onto them, at least for a reasonable time. Losing them by the very next day was a breach of that duty.

Are you just making that up because that's the way you see it, or is there actually some law to that effect? If there is actually some law, that's absurd.

quote:

Yes, "no good deed goes unpunished" may apply here, but that doesn't change the legalities. And if I'd heard that MoFo tell his employee "I"m not here", you bet your ass I'd make him buy me a new pair of shades!

So you leave an item behind due to your own carelessness, and you're going to demand that the owner or person in charge of the location you left it replace it for you? Somehow I don't think that'll work out the way you think it will.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by honestlou:

The restaurant owner/staff are not legally entitled to anything that is mistakenly left there. When the owner told you he had your glasses, and would hold them for you, he had a duty to do so. Whether or not you want to go after him for the value is your decision.

....

Legally speaking, the restaurant owner was not responsible for finding them, but since he did find them, he had a duty to exercise reasonable care in holding onto them, at least for a reasonable time. Losing them by the very next day was a breach of that duty.

Are you just making that up because that's the way you see it, or is there actually some law to that effect? If there is actually some law, that's absurd.

quote:

Yes, "no good deed goes unpunished" may apply here, but that doesn't change the legalities. And if I'd heard that MoFo tell his employee "I"m not here", you bet your ass I'd make him buy me a new pair of shades!

So you leave an item behind due to your own carelessness, and you're going to demand that the owner or person in charge of the location you left it replace it for you? Ok.

No, not making that up. State law certainly may vary, but in general a case involving negligence requires four things:

1) Some duty of care,
2) A breach of that duty,
3) Causation, and
4) Damages

As to the duty owed to the OP, once the glasses were found and the owner affirmed he had them in his possession and would hold them for the OP, he had a duty to do so. The extent of that duty could certainly be argued. I don't think that he had an absolute duty to preserve them no matter what, but I think holding them until the next day was within his duty of care at that point.

That duty was breached, I would argue, when he failed to preserve them even one day.

If there was a duty, and that duty was breached, then clearly that breach was the cause of the OP's damages. So the argument here is limited to whether or not the restaurant owner had any duty of care, and if so was it breached.

I don't mean to say that this is a definite outcome. Arguments could be made the other way, but I think that there is a strong likelihood that the OP would prevail. It would be hard to argue that the restaurant owner had no duty at all once he confirmed that he had the glasses and that he would hold them for the OP.

You could argue that the duty did not include protecting them against theft, or that the theft was not a breach of the duty. But this was not a case of the building burning down, or an outside thief breaking in during the night and stealing things.

We all have a duty every day to act as a reasonably prudent person would act under the circumstances. I'd argue that a reasonably prudent person would have locked the valuable sunglasses in his office until the OP came to pick them up.

As to what I'd do, I'd have probably just let it go, until I heard the bastard say "tell him I'm not here". I have little tolerance for that kind of bullshit, and I'd make him replace them. Which I do think is reasonable based on it only being the next day that the OP went back. He could have gone back that night, but when the owner says "I have them; I'll hold them for you", then he should.

^^^Ok, I get what you're saying in regards to "a duty to return." I agree with that.

I'm very doubtful though in this case that the OP would be able to prove anything either way and recoup any losses. But hey, who knows?

Thought post titles were supposed to be representative of the actual content? Shouldn’t it have read “I lost my glasses at a restaurant” with the rest of the post explained as you wrote it? Sorry, but this loss is on you as the originator of the issue.

quote:

Originally posted by OMCHamlin:

quote:

Originally posted by honestlou:
...you bet your ass I'd make him buy me a new pair of shades!

How would you do that, exactly? How would you MAKE him "buy you a new pair of shades"?

honestlou is an attorney. In a previous post he laid out the legal basis for holding the restaurant owner responsible, once he (the restaurant owner) stated that he had found the customer's sunglasses and would hold them for the customer.

The restaurant owner failed to carry out his duty (as stated by honestlou), so honestlou, being an attorney and having legal basis to do so, could sue the restaurant owner, to "MAKE him replace the sunglasses."

I understand a “duty to return” as the requirement to return something that belongs to another when requested—but assuming I possess that thing. What if I find a pair of glasses that were run over and one lens broken? If I decide to keep them to salvage the other lens but the owner approaches me and asks for them back, I must give them to him; that’s a duty to return. On the other hand, if I had decided they were just litter on the street and thrown them in the trash where they couldn’t be recovered, would I be required to replace them? Of course not.

This situation is somewhat similar to incidents in the military when property is lost or stolen. The UCMJ has an offense of “suffering the loss of government property through neglect,” and many armed forces members have been charged under its provisions. “Neglect” in that case, and usually in similar civilian offenses such as negligent homicide, means the failure to exercise reasonable due care in protecting property or performing certain acts such as driving a car.

Assuming that the restaurant owner actually assumed a duty to care for the sunglasses by admitting he had them, what would have been reasonable? “Due care” doesn’t mean all conceivable care or even all possible care, only what’s reasonable under the circumstances. In the 1960s M14 machine guns issued to West Point cadets were required to be stored in their unsecured rooms in racks with no locks when not in use. If a cadet returned to his room one day after class and his rifle was gone, would he have been guilty of suffering its loss through neglect? How else could he have reasonably secured the weapon except by following the orders given at the time?

In the situation described above, what level of due care did the restaurant owner have? Did he have to buy a $1500 safe to secure the glasses in? Did he have to lock his office that was normally open to employees, thereby disrupting the business’ operations just to protect something that had been foisted on him without his knowledge or consent by the carelessness of another? If he knew that his employees would steal anything they could lay hands on, that might demand a higher level of care to protect the glasses than if he’d never had anything stolen, including funds or valuable equipment, but what if he had every reason to trust his employees? What would be his liability to replace the glasses if they had been taken from him at gunpoint or destroyed when the restaurant burned down?

Could the glasses owner sue the restaurant owner for their loss? Of course. He could sue the owner because he suffered emotional distress at seeing escargots on the menu.
Would he win? Possibly; miscarriage of justice is as common as dirt.
Should he win? Not in my opinion.

quote:

Originally posted by tsmccull:
Thought post titles were supposed to be representative of the actual content? Shouldn’t it have read “I lost my glasses at a restaurant” with the rest of the post explained as you wrote it? Sorry, but this loss is on you as the originator of the issue.

"Mislaid" would actually be the correct verbiage to use in this case.

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
Leave a negative yelp review stating an employee stole your sunglasses.

would that be a true statement?

did an employee steal them from the office desk, maybe,,

did they steal them from the OP, who left them behind,,,,

I'd ask the owner to split the cost of a new pair and count yourself lucky if he agrees.

I'm the most non-litigious attorney you'll probably ever meet. I let stuff slide all the time. Please don't take anything I said out of context. I said that legally the restaurant owner is probably responsible, mostly because of the short time frame. A reasonable person would have put them in a desk drawer, or in the cash register, etc.

Personally I would have let it slide, except and until I heard him on the phone instructing the employee to tell me he wasn't there. Then I'd make him buy me a new pair. How? Demand it, and probably small claims court if he didn't comply.

Most definitely go after the restaurant dude. Hammer and tong.

Next time a customer leaves something of value there, it will probably immediately go in the trash.