What are a restaurant's lost and found legal responsibilities - Manager admitted to have lost item then it disappeared a day later?

Answer 1

On admittance clause, it's restaurant's general liability. If a manager admitted to the customer that its lost & disappeared next day, first the business is liable to the customer and can offer cash or kind to the max value of the property lost. This is usually done to avoid further common law liability on business or for the act of general negligence the customer can sue the business for. This method generally followed by all business for avoiding further trouble.

alternatively business wanted to find out who took the property in the business, it can report to police and try to recover the lost property and return to the customer. - this will be a case of lost property claim with police & once police found, the case is over. It's a different matter if the customer want to accept the found property which is purely between the business and customer, not anyway related to the first claim of theft. On the 2nd part if the customer didn't want to accept it for various reasons like damaged, used or other personal privacy reasons, the business are liable for general liability or common law liability for negligence if the customer want to persue, so it is back to the first paragraph and settle with the customer for the true value of property.