AS PART OF A three-day “Mystery Tour,” Joan Larson of Apex Travel, Inc., a Wisconsin-based tour operator, contacted the Ragin Cajun restaurant in Illinois, for the purpose of reserving 120 seats for dinner on a Friday night in September. The tour group arrived, and one male group member, after three drinks, began making rude and suggestive comments to one of the restaurant’s female servers. When Steve, the restaurant manager approached Gene, the Apex tour leader, about the situation, Gene maintained the comments were probably made in harmless fun and should be overlooked by the restaurant. “Besides,” stated Gene, “our bus is leaving to go back to our hotel in one hour and that particular tour group member lives several hundred miles away and is unlikely to ever see that server again.” As the Ragin Cajun’s restaurant manager:
Question:-
1. What are your legal responsibilities to your server?
2. Who is responsible for controlling this guest’s behavior?
3. How would you respond to Gene, the tour operator?
4. What potential liability does Apex face in this situation?