In the intricate ballet of dining out, where the swirl of service and satisfaction meets the harsh reality of the restaurant business, Connecticut diners might be surprised to learn the fate of their tips is not as clear-cut as they probably believe.

The common assumption that the extra money we leave on the table (or on our credit cards) for good service lands directly in the pockets of restaurant servers is, under current law, more of a hope than a guarantee. This murkiness around tip ownership doesn't just muddy the waters of consumer intention — it outright muddies the already tenuous livelihoods of restaurant servers.

The revelation that no federal or Connecticut law effectively mandates that our tips go directly to our servers probably shocks you. As it stands, though, as long as employers pay their servers the standard minimum wage (not the lower service minimum wage), they are likely under no legal obligation to pass along the tips we leave. This loophole effectively means that a diner's gesture of appreciation could end up bolstering business profits rather than rewarding the server's attentive assistance. (A 2011 U.S. Department of Labor regulation tried to address this problem, but it was invalidated by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, and that was even before the U.S. Supreme Court effectively gutted Chevron deference.)