Moral Implication of mistakes

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Darryl_B

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Tonight I took my three children along to see a movie. I had a gift-voucher which was a gift to my children. I tried to pay for the movie with the gift-voucher and pay in cash for myself. The person behind the counter scanned the barcode on the gift-voucher found a problem, the gift-voucher was expired even though the gift-voucher obviously wasn’t as the date on the voucher is next December. They got the manager, who went through the same process, but then proceeded to give me 4 comp tickets, asked me to leave the gift voucher with him, and for me to come back after the movie after he had sorted the problem.

We all enjoyed the movie and then afterwards I went back to the front desk as asked by the manager. The manager did not see me but he got a staff member to point out that the gift voucher was actually for their main competitor, and when I looked I did notice their competitor was blazoned across the top. I made a mistake, they made a mistake, they were generous in how they dealt with it.

Should I have tried to pay for the movie in restitution for the mistake?
 
Don’t worry about it, they made a commercial decision to be welcoming and thus establish a good relationship with you. In the future you’ll be more inclined to do business with them and that is what they aimed at. So they got what they wanted. Also, they could have understood the situation immediately - since they didn’t and hesitated it was also to their gain in experience. It was not your mistake, but theirs in leaving room for the mistake - so they should assume the responsibility for the awkward situation since they are the professionals responsible.
 
For something to be immoral, it has to be an intentional act. You weren’t trying to intentionally scam them, you simply overlooked something and the party that suffered financially through a mutual accident simply decided to be generous. Every business recognizes that some degree of generosity is good for business in the long run, so it’s an easy loss for them to write off. It sounds to me like everyone had the best of intentions, and this time you simply benefited a bit from it. There’s no reason to feel guilty at all.
 
Darryl_B said:
Should I have tried to pay for the movie in restitution for the mistake?
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No restitution would seem necessary. No one acted badly. No one suffered actual loss.

What if they’d provided physical goods in return for the gift certificate?
 
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That is a funny story, and the manager will probably be able to use it for employee training.
 
The duty of restitution applies differently to a wrongful possessor of another’s property in good versus bad faith. A possessor in good faith is bound only to return the particular goods which belong to the other person, and is quit of obligation should those goods be lost, destroyed, or otherwise unrecoverable, while the possessor in bad faith is bound to restore the value of the goods in the event that restoration of the particular goods is impossible.

Since you acted in good faith and you can’t “give back” the movie you saw, you have no obligation. It would be different if you had received physical goods and still had possession of them.
 
Thank you for all the answers to my predicament. I feel less troubled about the situation than what I did as I was walking out the front doors.
 
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