Age-old question: can someone settle the bill Dutch style even if the restaurant owner disagrees? Here’s what the Italian law says about it.
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When we go out to eat in a group and the idea is to divide the final price of the dinner among all the diners so that everyone can pay their share, the question arises whether the owner of the restaurant can claim the right to present a single bill.
In this regard, there is no precise legislation that can regulate the matter, but our legal system equally provides to address the problem indirectly through an institution. This is the contract; in fact, when you enter a restaurant and sit down to eat a meal you tacitly enter a contract between customer and restaurateur. To understand whether the latter can be obliged to charge everyone separately, it is necessary to identify what type of legal contract has been concluded between the parties. The contract that is made between the customer and the caterer is verbal, since there are no written documents, and, of course, the onset of this relationship generates rights and obligations for both.
But beware, the contract is not finalized when the diners take their seats, but after they have placed their orders. This would be a catering contract, however, which is not governed by the Civil Code: the gap is made up by resorting to general legislation and using related types such as the contract of work and sale. The one between customer and caterer falls into the genre of mixed-performance contracts because the restaurant, in addition to serving, must also provide the customer with additional services, including the use of bathrooms and a place at the table. What about the price?
It seems that a single contract is made between each individual customer and the owner of the restaurant, even if several people occupy the same table. It comes, therefore, as a matter of course to imagine that diners, should they request it, accrue the right to be able to pay the bill separately. The restaurateur can issue a single receipt but cannot deny diners the opportunity to settle the bill Dutch style unless otherwise agreed before the meal begins. On the one hand, we always say that eating is serious business.
Source: money.it
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