In fact, maybe they should have a “No Jerks” day and simply refuse to serve ANY Harvard B School faculty for 24 hours. I know public accommodation law prohibits discrimination based on some protected classes but are employer or profession among them? Ask each patron if the work for the BS, give them a flyer explaining the reason for the protests and point out that if it is discovered that they ARE employees and lied, you will take legal action against them. Not sure what you could do. Maybe publish a menu that states HBS faculty have a minimum table charge of $10,000 to go to a pool for defending stupid legal actions and then go after them for fraud.

Let’s hypothesize a different situation (this is a real situation that happened to a friend of mine):

A senior citizen goes into her local bank and is convinced to work with a financial advisor. The advisor says she will charge 0.75%/year to manage the client’s assets. However, she actually charges 1.0%/year, and the customer doesn’t notice until years later (the percentage is never listed on the monthly statements – just a dollar amount, so it is not immediately obvious what percentage is being charged). The overcharges amount to thousands of dollars. The customer complains to the bank, and the bank says — oops, sorry, and offers a refund.

What should she do?
1) Should she take it and be done with it?
2) Should the bank have to refund all the customers it overcharged?
3) Should the bank have to refund all the customers AND pay a penalty on top of it?

If you choose either 1 or 2, then the bank has a very good thing going. It can cheat its customers at will. If it doesn’t get caught, it can keep the money. If it does get caught, it may have to give some of the money back, but it is no worse off than if it never cheated its customers at all. It’s all upside and no downside.

OK, so I agree that this is a different situation here. This is a small business, not a large evil bank. But we do have general laws/principles that should apply to everyone equally (in theory, if not in practice). So where do we draw the line?

By that I mean this is not a case where a car repair shop advertises an oil change at $20 and then charges $30 and won’t give you your car back until you pay the additional money.

This was an internet take out order which meant that when Edelman had not eaten the food (in the restaurant) or even had it delivered. Instead, he hadn’t gotten his food yet when he paid for it. No one was holding his cash or credit card hostage forcing him to pay the higher bill.

When he hands over the cash / check / credit card to the cashier and picks up his order, isn’t he saying “I agree to the charges as listed here?”

I guess what I am wondering is that he agreed to the terms of the deal and now wants to penalize the restaurant far beyond the value of his food and the so difference in price.

I always look at my receipts before signing them or handing over cash.

Am I smarter and better than a Harvard professor who cannot see that his bill was higher than expected and yet agreed to pay the higher rate?

And no actual restitution for any actual harm; just more pain-in-the-ass because somebody got his butt hurt.

Of course, everyone knows that websites are different from printed menus, and that everything on the net is always up-to-date and reliable. It reminds me of a trip to San Fran a few years back. We decided to walk a mile or so to the Toronado, a famous bar on Haight. My lady friend was very excited about a particular beer included in their on-line beer list. She ordered it when we arrived, only to be told “oh we never update that and haven’t had that beer in a long time.” Where was Edelman when I needed him?