LAWYERS familiar with civil suits are advising the woman who felt grossly insulted when a Starbucks barista misspelt her short name as “BABI” instead of “BAVI” to chill and drop her intention to file a legal suit against Starbucks Malaysia because the case is after all “an honest mistake”.
A legal expert deemed the entire event as a waste of the woman’s money and the court’s precious time as the case will very likely be “thrown out”.
“Imagine she as the plaintiff has to spend her own money to hire her own lawyer to fight Starbucks’ lawyers who are expected to be very familiar with the F&B (food & beverage) industry, not to mention customer behaviour,” a lawyer shared his thoughts with FocusM on condition of anonymity.
“In my view, her case itself is not solid for it mostly surrounds her personal interest, anger and vendetta which the court can even construe as an attempt to seek glamour. [She can even be deemed] racist especially after she pinpointed “Malay staff” in her original Facebook post which is believed to have been taken down.”
In her Facebook post dated May 15 which became viral soon after, Bavitra Ramachandran vented her disappointment over the misrepresentation of her name by the Starbucks staff’ at Sunway Medical Centre Velocity in Cheras.
“Starbucks Malaysia, I’m going to sue you! Starbucks Sunway Medical Centre (and) Starbucks Sunway Velocity Mall, impossible that your Malay staff doesn’t know there is no human name that starts with ‘Babi’!”
A seasoned lawyer told FocusM that the said woman may have to fork out RM100,000 (more or less) to initiate a defamation case “although many lawyers may be willing to charge less”.
“Legal fees may include additional charges for each and every application/appeal and this really may not depend on just the applicant but the respondent could also be filling applications/appeals even to higher appellant courts,” he revealed.
“Honestly, she has little chance. Her name is “BAVI” so the mistake may be just a mistake, possibly brought out by miscommunication. I would not advise her filing of any case for what has been highlighted to the media is sufficient.”
Worst still, the lawyer warned of the risk of Starbucks counter-suing for defamation if this matter is prolonged in the public arena. “This could then be double jeopardy for her,” he added.
At the end of the day, she might as well heed the opinion of some netizens as featured below: – May 19, 2023
