Courts Should Not Be Involved in Hindu-Vegetarian Case

This news story about 16 strict vegetarian Hindus who are suing a restaurant that mistakenly gave them samosas with meat in them has a lot of people talking. They are suing for the restaurant to pay for all of them to go to India to bathe in the Ganges River as part of a cleansing ceremony that can, apparently, take anywhere from three to thirty days.

Are these restaurant patrons taking advantage of our litigious society? Have they really been irreparably harmed? I think the answer is no to both of these questions.

I don't want to discount the feelings and emotional distress that these people probably genuinely feel by (even accidentally) offending their faith. As a person who holds strict religious standards (and Mormons are notorious for their guilt over mistakes), I can understand how seriously they are taking this. That being said, it does seem extreme to demand a trip to bathe in one of the dirtiest rivers in the world for a month...especially if there's another solution as mentioned at the end of the article.
In discussing this story, a local radio show host stated that these people had no case because they were not actually harmed. If they had been made physically sick, then they would have a case. But, because the harm was spiritual and emotional, and, thus not tangible, they should not be rewarded monetarily. He went on to say that the harm was fake because all religion was fake, even if they individuals think it is real.

While I certainly don't agree with this host that religion is fake, I do think there is a fine line to be walked when suing tangible gain for harm that one believes has been done and harm that has actually been done. I am certainly not an expert on the Hindu religion, however, as stated at the end of the article, there must be a way for this restaurant to pay for its mistake without spending the thousands of the dollars it would cost to send all these people to India for a month (maybe putting that restaurant out of business). Perhaps the cleansing ceremony at a local temple would suffice, but these people see an opportunity for more and want to take advantage. How to prove what one believes will actually cleanse them will be a tough case in the court of law with each side bringing it's own Hindu 'experts' to discuss proper cleansing rituals, etc. Seems like this case will go round and round eventually showing that no one is right or wrong.

So, maybe in that sense the lawsuit is wrong, not because of the restaurant's negligence cannot be proven, but because an appropriate way to cleanse cannot be agreed upon. The courts should have no place determining what is and is not a proper cleansing ritual for these individuals; that should be left up to their religious leaders. Since both the restaurant and the patrons and Hindus, perhaps, if the courts decide to not take this case, it will force the religious leaders of these two sides to come up with an alternate solution that can be agreed upon in the appropriate religious arena.