Six-Figure ‘Complimentary Breakfast’ Lawsuit Tossed by Judge With Fine For Lawyer Suing Wall Street Spa
In what sort of world does someone sue a spa for six figures for not providing a complimentary breakfast?
A world in which one pays $5,000 a year for a membership to said spa, one would suppose. Lawyer Richard Katz shelled out the big bucks for access to the Financial District’s Setai Wall Street Club and Spa, but forfeited his membership several years ago due to a dispute with the spa’s management.
Namely, it would seem, Katz was sent packing from the posh Setai Spa after he sent an angry email to the spa’s staff due to the fact that the complimentary breakfast supplied to him under the terms of his membership may have been complimentary, but in Katz’s opinion, really skirted some legal definitions of what constitutes breakfast.
For instance, standard, breakfast-issue items to which Katz had become accustomed began to disappear from the daily rotation, such as cereal and yogurt. Yes, if the recession and economic downturn is something you believe has hit you and your family in a terrible and life-changing way, please spare a second of your frustration to consider the spagoers who are forced to consume things other than complimentary yogurt and granola for breakfast- those forced to subsist on foie gras omelets alone, perhaps, or even just a modest repast of black truffled home fries and freshly-squeezed juice squeezed from mid-range oranges.
Katz even tried to resolve the matter reasonably, by sending shouty, sweary emails to the spa’s management. Such as one entered in court documents, in which the lawyer had argued:
“WHAT THE F*** IS GOING ON? …How would you like to explain there has been no yogurt for two (2) weeks and now no cereal. When does the coffee run out?”
After Katz’s frustration got him booted from the swanky Setai club, he brought the suit. A judge did not sympathize with the plaintiff’s suffering, and upon dismissing the claim this week, fined Katz $440. Katz has not commented on the lawsuit’s outcome.
