Is this restaurateur acting within his rights?
Is this restaurateur acting within his rights?
"I booked a table at the restaurant for an evening of wine tasting with several friends, but unfortunately some of them cancelled at the last minute. He finally agreed to compensate us by ordering a few excellent bottles, but I'd like to know if his request was legally justified?
Vincent, Geneva
A catering contract is one in which one party (the restaurateur) undertakes, in return for payment, to offer another party (the customer) food and/or drink, allowing them to consume it on the premises. This type of contract is not specifically regulated by the Swiss Code of Obligations (CO), and the general rules on contracts must be applied. Art. 1 CO explains that a contract is concluded when each party has simultaneously expressed its will to the other and both parties want an agreed result. This was the case because you agreed on a certain number of tasting menus to be served on a specific date, for a certain price.
According to art. 97 of the Swiss Code of Obligations, if the creditor is unable to obtain full performance of the contract, the debtor is obliged to compensate the damage caused. You are liable to the restaurant owner, as you should have ensured that the people who had registered for the evening were present. If the restaurant owner was unable to use the surplus seats that you reserved and had to give up customers for this reason, he will suffer damage in the form of lost profits, especially as this is turnover that he could have counted on, unless the general conditions of his establishment allow cancellation on the same day. The restaurant owner was therefore entitled to claim payment from you for the menus in question, to which he could even have added the drinks he could expect to serve. That said, he should have deducted the price of the goods he could have reused.
For your part, unless you had reserved seats for your friends without first asking for their consent, you could have taken legal action against those who had stood you up, in accordance with the rules on representation set out in art. 32 et seq. of the Swiss Code of Obligations. The cash compensation you negotiated was therefore undoubtedly a more agreeable way of settling the matter...
