A Chinese court ordered a hot pot restaurant to pay 237,000 yuan ($35,000) to a female customer after an angry waiter poured scalding soup on her during heated argument.

The incident occurred in August of last year, at a branch of ‘Mr Hot Pot’ restaurant, in Wenzhou, eastern China. The victim, referred to only as Ms. Lin, was having dinner with members of her family, including her mother and her seven-year-old daughter, when she got into an argument with their waiter over the amount of water in her hot pot. The man walked away as Lin was complaining to him, so she decided to vent by posting a negative review of the restaurant on social media, referencing one of the managers in her post. Online reviews are a big deal in China, as most customers choose where to eat by reading customer reviews.

After seeing her review, the furious waiter returned to Ms. Lin’s table and asked her to remove the post. She refused, so he went back into the kitchen, grabbed a large pot of boiling soup and poured it all over the dissatisfied patron. But he didn’t stop there. Footage captured by CCTV cameras show the 17-year-old waiter pulling the shocked woman backwards in her chair, knocking her head against a counter in the restaurant and the floor, and kicking her with his legs. The raging young man continued to hit her even as six people struggled to restrain him.

Ms. Lin suffered extensive damage to her skin,face, mostly on her neck, shoulder and back, and was rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment.

The waiter, surnamed Zhu, was arrested after the incident and immediately admitted to his crime. In the final stages of his trial, he had only one thing to say, and that was “I’m sorry”. On January 19, the Lucheng District Court in Wenzhou sentenced the waiter to 22 months in prison, which most people considered too lenient for the gravity of his actions. However, the judge had decided to go easy on him because he had been only 17 at the time of the crime.

However, the court also decided that Mr Hot Pot restaurant should also be held accountable, because the incident had occurred on its premises and had been caused by one of its employees during work hours. The judge also took into consideration the fact that Ms. Lin had to undergo expensive plastic surgery to treat her burns, many of which had affected her face.

The woman had originally asked for 577,500 yuan in compensation for the injuries and trauma she had suffered at the hand of Zhu, but on November 3, 2016, a court awarded Lin just 237,000 yuan, because the restaurant had already paid for her medical treatment.

via Shanghaiist