A server spilled an entire plate of spaghetti on my wife’s lap — and then didn’t even take it off our bill. Did they owe us a discount?

While Jack handed Allison a napkin, apologized, and brought her a second plate of spaghetti, Tony felt that the restaurant should have done much more. At a minimum, Tony thinks the spaghetti should have been taken off the bill, but he believes that a discount would have been appropriate, as well.

So, did the restaurant commit a faux pas by not ponying up the cash after the noodle disaster? Or is a dumped plate of spaghetti just an inherent risk of eating out?

Spill the sauce: What are your rights after a restaurant accident?

Jack’s spaghetti spill was certainly unfortunate, and, in theory, Allison may be owed a remedy and could have legal recourse to recover damages.

“Technically, that would be considered negligence,” Aaron Hall, an attorney for business owners, told Moneywise.

If Allison could show that the waiter had a duty to her to exercise reasonable care in serving the food, dropping the spaghetti was a breach of the duty, and she suffered harm as a result, then she could pursue a legal claim. However, as Hall said, “the damages are so small it wouldn’t justify litigation to recover.”

Now, if Allison has been seriously harmed, that would be a different story.

For example, you may have heard of the famous case in which a woman sued McDonald’s because the coffee was “hot.” Despite the way the media portrayed that case, McDonald’s had received over 700 previous complaints that the coffee was scalding, and the victim suffered third-degree burns.

The coffee burn victim tried to settle for $20,000 to cover her expenses, but the case went to trial when McDonald’s refused to pay. The jury awarded $3 million (roughly two days of coffee revenue) because they were appalled that McDonald’s had ignored a problem that had caused repeated injuries.

Fortunately for Allison, that’s not what happened to her, so with the only remedy likely to be dry-cleaning costs, going the legal route is probably off the table.

Settle the case in the court of public opinion

In this particular instance, Allison’s best bet to make the restaurant step up is to take her issue public.

“The better route is usually to ask a manager for a reasonable remedy, and you can hint that you’ll be posting your experience in an online review,” Hall said.

For example, Allison could send the restaurant her dry-cleaning bill for the dress and ask for the bill to be paid if the manager doesn’t want the story shared online.