Having a seizure? You still need to pay the Restaurant Bill!
 

• Man suffered seizure while dining at Chinese restaurant
• Man given bill as he was being loaded into ambulance
• Restaurant manager said someone had to pay for meal

A CHINESE restaurant that slapped a customer with the bill as he was being loaded into an ambulance has defended its actions.

Onlookers called paramedics when the man fell to the ground suffering an apparent seizure while enjoying dumplings with his friend at Shifu Dumpling Express in Acland St, St Kilda, at about 4.30pm today.
As the man was being loaded into the ambulance and his friend was climbing in to join him, a waiter came and handed the friend the bill.
Bella, who did not want her surname used, said she was disgusted at the restaurant's actions.
"I was so incredulous that it had happened,'' she said.
"It wasn't the most expensive restaurant in town, it's a dumpling house and their bill would not have been more than $30.
"It was just so inappropriate, I will never go there again.''
Manager Kevin Tian was remorseless about the gaffe and said he did not regret the money grab.
"My opinion is that they ate in our restaurant, they have to pay,'' he said.
An Ambulance Victoria spokesman confirmed a man in his 30s was taken to the Alfred Hospital in a stable condition.


SOURCE

Well that answers the question as to whether someone can get out of paying a restaurant bill by faking a seizure... :DL

I agree with August. If the word got out that he didn't had to pay, there would be a seizure 5 times a day there. And maybe a cholera outbreak once in a while.
But still, no very polite, if not heartless :nope:

Well Its a bold move, but they did eat there. Sure, he had a seizure but I would at least make sure my bill was taken care of after i got my health sorted out. Nobody works for free, and that restaurant is no exception. If it had been a cable bill It would have still been due. Heck, the hospital bills sick people all the time and nobody complains.

I'm also mildly disturbed at CHINESE being in bold capitals there. What does that have to do with anything? :shifty:

So he gets out of paying the bill. He then has to deal with the ambulance and hospital bills, and the possibility of being arrested for tying up those services falsesly. Worth it?

But I agree with Gimpy. Even if the seizure is real the bill still needs to be paid. Now if it was from food poisoning, on the other hand...

normal press format.

in most news stories, the first word or two of the story is all capital - especially when the story begins with a location, name of a city or a persons name etc.

;)

We are not idiots, we can do the math. Some cannot

There was a time quite a few years back when a couple refused to pay a bill after their meal because they said it wasn't up to an acceptable standard and when it made the local press some legal bod (or so they claimed) wrote in saying it was a civil matter, therefore there was no power of arrest and solicitors would need to resolve the issue between the customer and the restaurant owner (solicitors are the only winners here because of their legal fees).

Well, as you can imagine pretty soon word got round and there was a spate of dissatisfied customers.

Our advice to restaurant owners was to ask for a downpayment prior to cooking the meal and if they weren't prepared to comply (as potentially harsh as it could be to potential business) the chances were that they were never going to pay anyway.

A lot of restaurants didn't like the idea of asking for said payment and I can't honestly blame them...it would certainly put me off a restaurant.

So when we were called to a non payment claim the customer could only be arrested if they had insufficient funds to pay for what they ordered...otherwise it was a civil matter :doh:

Agreed, but it does make for bad optics to hand him the bill as he's being loaded on the ambulance...

Perhaps they should implement a policy of a deposit in advance in case some gluttonous sod eats himself to death. :haha:

For all of you that have said "yep, nothing wrong here, they ate, they pay", well, ever heard of such a thing called Diplomacy? Or some ethics? Mention to the friend to have the bill payed later if it's such a huuuuuge loss to the crappy little Chinese shack that $30 bucks is gonna break the bank and make them go assup!
Patheitic really! The manager should be sacked and the bill could well have been issued at a later, more appropriate time!
Bad, bad customer service!!! :down:

I think that eating the entire meal counts as waving that right. If the meal is such garbage that you cannot eat it, and you walk out before it's done, sure...but if you finish you meal...i disagree

Here it is considered that if a customer eats one third or more of a meal then they are entitled to pay for it.
That is common knowledge and law in the restaurant game.
I've seen people eat ALL of their meal and then complain about the quality of it. AND expect a refund! Laughable.
Needless to say, they paid.

and rightly so, i don't know about the laws here

I'm not SURE but it does look ODD.

Opps, diplomacy just went out the window.

Fixed.