Florida woman is suing local French bakery after it posted ‘cake thief’ posters in window after row at checkout – which resulted in her being hospitalized from stress
- Margarita Sciapin, a jewelry designer from Boca Raton, is suing her local French bakery after a dispute over payment for a cake left her hospitalized due to stress
- Paris Morning Bakery claims the mum received a refund for the purchase but decided to keep the cake anyway
- Sciapin’s lawsuit, filed last week, seeks over $50,000 in damages
A Florida woman is suing her local French bakery after being hospitalized under stress over a feud over a cake refund.
Margarita Sciapin, a jewelry designer from Boca Raton, bought a $29 mocha cake from Paris Morning Bakery in Boca Raton on a January day earlier this year.
A dispute over payment resulted in the bakery posting placards next to the mother’s register that read “cake thief,” a receipt with her full name and some of her credit card information.
Now Sciapin is suing the company for emotional damages and defamation totaling more than $50,000.
Sciapin recalls in legal documents filed last week how, when she went to collect her mocha cake, the cashier gave her the wrong product and was unable to “easily exchange the cakes.”
Paris Morning Bakery in Boca Raton released pictures of Margarita Sciapin following a payment dispute in January
Now Sciapin (pictured) is suing the company for emotional damages and defamation totaling more than $500,000
Sciapin claims the employee instead suggested issuing a refund and charging her again for the cake.
Sciapin says she doesn’t want to risk being charged twice, so she decided to keep the original cake and told the staffer not to worry.
However, the bakery remembers events differently.
One of the posters offered an explanation for the public shaming: “This Karen thief stole a cake from us at 5 p.m. on January 22, 2023.”
“When an employee tried to explain that our refunds don’t show up immediately on the bank statements, she got angry, refused to believe the employee, took the cake and left while her cake had already been refunded.
“She was very impatient when the clerk was trying to figure out how to issue a refund receipt. Instead of waiting, she ran away with the cake,” the poster concludes.
Sciapin claims the posters caused her 12-year-old daughter to be mocked at school and caused her to become so stressed and anxious that she was hospitalized for shortness of breath and a rapid heartbeat.
An employee at the bakery told the Miami New Times that images from Sciapin’s social media were used to produce the posters.
Sciapin says she didn’t want to risk being charged twice, so she decided to keep the original cake
The Paris Morning Bakery has now removed the wanted posters from its stores
Sciapin, a jewelry designer, claims she was hospitalized under stress from the ordeal
Materials featuring Sciapin have been distributed at Paris Morning locations, she says.
“It’s kind of a thing in our stores.” They actually printed a number of different designs of hers and then passed them on to our stores in case she comes back. “We have mementos of it in our kitchen,” the employee said.
A manager at the store told the publication that Sciapin “didn’t see the refund on her credit card and said she’d just take the cake.”
“If she had waited two minutes for the clerk to text me to find out how to print a refund slip, she would have gotten it.” But she pushed the clerk, wasn’t patient and wasn’t very understanding.’
Bakery workers said the posters had been removed.