Legal Question in Legal Ethics in California

It doesn't sound like it was a very pleasant meal for your daughter. In any case, it would constitute defamation because false information was "published" about you. To determine whether you should bring suit, you would have to determine how much harm it has brought you, whether the people dining with your daughter believed it to be true, whether your reputation was harmed, etc., and whether the person working as a food server has money to pay a potential judgment. Perhaps an adult discussion with this person and an apology would resolve the issue.

Mr. Cohen is too far out of law school. He should remember from first-year Torts class: the elements of defamation include damages, which generally have to be financial or measureable in financial terms. Upset to you and your daughter do not constitute damages unless it rises to the level of severe emotional distress which generally requires physical manifestation and a psychological diagnosis. And in that case the tort is not defamation, but rather intentional infliction of emotional distress.