CHAPTER 10: Rights of Innkeepers

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CHAPTER 10 Rights of Innkeepers

• Hotels and restaurants have the right to make
  reasonable rules for the behavior etc. of their
  customers.
• However hotels extend and implied invitation to
  both non-guests and guests.

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CHAPTER 10 Rights of Innkeepers

• Therefore a person who enters a hotel while not a
  guest is not considered a trespasser. This
  implied license can be revoked by the innkeeper
  at any time

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CHAPTER 10 Rights of Innkeepers

• and if the non-guest refuses to leave the
  premises after being asked, he becomes a
  trespasser. After the person has been asked to
  leave the innkeeper can use reasonable force to
  remove him, but not more.

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• People v. Thorpe. Jehovah's Witnesses enter a
  hotel and start going from door to door with
  their pamphlets. They are asked to leave by
  refuse.

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• Then the police are called and they are told that
  the hotel has a right to bar them from entry.
  They are removed, but only to return moments
  later in order to continue their preaching.

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• They are subsequently arrested. The hotel has a
  right to remove non-guests if it feels that their
  behavior is unwanted by the guests or could be
  found annoying even if the conduct is not itself
  unlawful.

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CHAPTER 10 Rights of Innkeepers

• After enactment of The Civil Rights Act of 1964
  hotels and restaurants are considered public
  places and it is unlawful to discriminate against
  persons because of color, religion etc.

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CHAPTER 10 Rights of Innkeepers

• Refusing a guest lodging
• RULE A hotel cannot refuse a person seeking
  lodging.
• Exceptions 1) if the hotel has no vacancies. 2)
  if person drunk,

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• 3) if visibly unclean, 4) if disorderly, 5) if
  suffering from contagious disease, 6) if
  prospective guest cannot pay in advance,

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• 7) if known criminal, 8) if prospective guest
  carries firearms, 9) if prospective guest has
  pets (excluding seeing eye dogs).

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• The consequences of wrongful refusal. The
  excluded guest can sue hotel for damages
  including the expenses of staying elsewhere.

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• Age. Age is not a protected class in places of
  public accommodation. Therefore a restaurant
  could refuse to serve a child.

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CHAPTER 10 Rights of Innkeepers

• However, a hotel has a common law duty to provide
  accommodation to all seeking it, only with the
  before mentioned exceptions.

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• A hotel can therefore not refuse a child. If a
  child cannot pay, the hotel can either go after
  the child

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• because the services (food and shelter) are
  considered necessities and therefore the child
  must pay reasonable value, or the hotel can sue
  the parents of the child.

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CHAPTER 10 Rights of Innkeepers

• Selecting accommodations for a guest
  Determination of which guest gets which room has
  always been the prerogative of the innkeeper.

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• Nixon v. Royal Coach Inn of Houston. A female
  guest is assigned a room some distance away from
  the front desk.

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CHAPTER 10 Rights of Innkeepers

• After she returns from having dinner in town, she
  is attacked in the hallway on the way to her
  room.

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CHAPTER 10 Rights of Innkeepers

• She is claiming that the hotel was negligent for
  assigning a single female guest a room that
  remote and far away from the front desk. But the
  hotel is not liable.

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CHAPTER 10 Rights of Innkeepers

• Changing a guests accommodations The
  hotelkeeper has the sole right to select the room
  for the guest and, if expedient, change it. It is
  legal, but not advisable.

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CHAPTER 10 Rights of Innkeepers

• Entering a guests room. The rule is that when a
  guest occupies a room, he should be the sole
  occupier. But the hotel can enter the room for
  maintenance, repair, imminent danger, nonpayment
  and when requested by the guest.

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CHAPTER 10 Rights of Innkeepers

• Evicting a guest Under some circumstances a
  hotel may evict a guest provided it does not use
  excessive force. These are the circumstances

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CHAPTER 10 Rights of Innkeepers

• Failure to pay bill.
• Morningstar v. Lafayette Hotel. A hotel guest
  refuses to pay a charge in the hotel restaurant.
  The next time he goes there, he is being told
  that the restaurant will not serve on him. This
  is the right of the restaurant.

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CHAPTER 10 Rights of Innkeepers

• Overstaying. If the guest is staying longer than
  the period of time agreed on the contract, the
  hotel has the right to evict. If the guest
  refuses to leave, he breaches the contract and
  becomes a trespasser.

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• The hotel has two choices either evict or assume
  that a new contract exists and charge the guest
  on a day-to-day basis.

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• Three states have enacted statutes that modify
  the common law rule in that they do not require
  the hotel to request the guest to leave before he
  becomes a trespasser.

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• Persons of ill repute.
• Raider v. Dixie Inn. A female guest staying at an
  inn is removed without explanation. The reason is
  that the innkeeper has learned that she is a
  prostitute.

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• She files suit, not because of the eviction, but
  because of the manner in which she was evicted.
  But the fact that the innkeeper removed her
  belongings from the room when she was not

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• there and then quietly asked her to leave upon
  her return was not excessive, not unlawful.

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• However what constitutes an objectionable
  character is changing over time and today she
  would not have been evicted unless she was
  practicing her profession in the hotel.

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CHAPTER 10 Rights of Innkeepers

• Intoxication and disorderly conduct. Intoxication
  alone is not enough to remove the guest. The
  guest must be disturbing the other guests or
  otherwise behave in an disorderly fashion.

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• Disorderly conduct. A person can also be removed
  for disorderly conduct and disturbance of other
  guests, even if not intoxicated.

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• Contagiously ill guests. The general rule is that
  the hotel may evict, but after enactment of the
  ADA, the guest is protected so that the hotel
  must make reasonable accommodations, but is that
  possible? There are no cases yet.

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• Breaking house rules. A hotel is permitted to
  have house rules and it can evict a guest for
  breaking them. But the rules must be posted in
  visible places.

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• Persons not registered. Rights of a guest are
  not transferable and a hotel may evict a
  non-guest anytime.

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• Kelly v. United States. The appellant was seen on
  several occasions in the Statler hotel and was
  later identified as a prostitute who was doing
  business from the hotel.

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• She is stopped by security and a barring notice
  was read to her. When she returns some time later
  she is arrested for unlawful entry.

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• Appellant contends that the unlawful entry
  statute does not apply to hotels.

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• But since it is a general rule that a hotel has
  the right to exclude a person who is not and has
  no intention of becoming a guest, then entry
  subsequent to such an exclusion is unlawful.

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• Henning v. Goldberg. The hotel changes the locks
  when the person occupying the room is out. When
  she returns she cannot get in.

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• But she is not a registered guest and the room is
  in fact booked by another person under a
  different name.

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• Having permission from the real guest is not
  enough to give her a lawful right to occupy the
  room.

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• Persons without baggage. The mere absence of
  luggage does not itself suggest an immoral or
  illegal intent.

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• Business competitors. If business competitors
  come to a hotel seeking accommodation, they have
  to be treated like any other guest and cannot be
  evicted.

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• But if they come there soliciting business, they
  act unlawful and can be evicted. Even if a guest
  in the hotel orders food from a competitor and
  wants to have it delivered, the hotel can refuse
  the competitor at the door.

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• Also a hotel which is not serving food can choose
  a limited number of businesses to deliver food
  and exclude others. Only when there are no
  legitimate interests for excluding a business, it
  will be unlawful.

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CHAPTER 10 Rights of Innkeepers

• Illegal eviction or detention.
• Excessive force. Use of excessive force in an
  eviction can lead to liability for assault or
  battery.

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• Assault means intentionally putting someone in
  fear of harmful physical contact. Battery means
  causing actual harmful physical contact.

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• Hopp v. Thompson. A person enters a hotel and is
  asked to leave. He is a stranger and not a guest.
  He refuses.

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CHAPTER 10 Rights of Innkeepers

• The hotel threatens to call the police, but the
  man attacks the person on duty when he picks up
  the phone receiver. Then the employee strikes the
  man with a piece of pipe. He gets injured.

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• The man has a completely different story and says
  that he did not refuse to leave and that he did
  not attack the employee. However the rule is that
  only reasonable force can be used and here it was
  excessive.

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• Durand v. Moore. A doorman at a night club
  attacks a waiting customer. The nightclub
  contends that the employee did not act within the
  scope of his employment.

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• The customer waiting had been passed several
  times by others behind him who were chosen by the
  doorman to be let in. The customer complained but
  was attacked by the doorman.

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• It is disputed whether the customer had been loud
  and threatening.

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• A court found the club liable under Respondeat
  superior. On this appeal the issue is whether the
  doorman acted within the scope of the general
  authority of the employment.

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• In this case the doorman had the responsibility
  to control entry of the customers and since the
  assault happened in direct connection to the
  argument about admittance,

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• it was seen as an overzealous enforcement of the
  criteria laid down by the club. The use of
  Respondeat superior was correct.

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• Verbal abuse. It is also illegal to use verbal
  abuse when evicting a person.

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• How to evict. When evicting, a hotel must
  distinguish between a guest and a tenant. A
  tenant cannot be removed without court
  proceeding.

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CHAPTER 10 Rights of Innkeepers

• Refusing a diner Under common law, a restaurant,
  unless part of an inn, had the right to refuse
  any person. This is still the rule today absent a
  statute modifying common law.

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• But federal and state law prohibits
  discrimination against persons because of race,
  religion etc. But if a person has a reservation,
  the restaurant is obligated to serve the person
  because a contract exists.

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• Statutory protection for the hotelkeeper If a
  patron does not pay, the hotel lien gives the
  innkeeper the right to hold the patrons
  belongings.

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• The innkeepers lien. A lien is a security
  interest in the property of a debtor. The lien
  gives the creditor the right to take possession
  of the property, realize the assets and apply the
  proceeds to the unpaid debt.

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• Lien is derived from common law but all states
  have enacted legislation supporting the
  principle.

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• The issue was brought before the Supreme Court,
  plaintiffs arguing that these laws were
  incompatible with the Due Process Clause of the
  Constitution,

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• because it states that you cannot derive a person
  his property without due process in court. But
  the SC held that this only applies in cases where
  the property is taken by the government.

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• After this ruling, some states have enacted
  legislation widening the Due Process Clause to
  also covering the private cases. But other states
  have done nothing.

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• Rights under the lien. The innkeeper can prevent
  the guest from removing the property, it can take
  possession, and it can sell. What property?

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• Almost all property that a guest brings into a
  hotel. Exceptions are necessities and some very
  personal pieces of jewelry, such as a wedding
  ring.

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• The right also extends to property brought into
  the hotel, not belonging to the guest, PROVIDED
  that the hotel does not know that the property
  does not belong to the guest.

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• If the guests tries to take possession of the
  property under the lien, he can be charged with
  theft. Typically the statutes require

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• the innkeeper to post an announcement of sale of
  the property at least 2 weeks prior to the sale
  date, including a description of the goods. The
  innkeeper must also send notice of the sale to
  the nonpaying guest.

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• Defrauding the hotelkeeper or restaurateur
• Intent to defraud. Two elements must be proven
  That there is a criminal act and that there is
  intent to defraud.

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• Since the intent is difficult to prove, some
  states have a presumption of intent and the
  defendant has to rebut that.

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• State of Utah v. Leonard. The defendant checks
  into a hotel and pays in cash the first two days.
  Thereafter no payment is received. When the hotel
  four days later asks him to pay his accumulated
  bill and nothing happens,

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• he gets locked out of his room. He promises to
  pay and is let back into the room. But defendant
  vacates the room and is arrested shortly
  thereafter. He is convicted of obtaining services
  by deception. However, fraudulent intent must be
  proven,

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• a mere inability to pay is not enough. Neither is
  a mere breach of contract enough to prove theft
  of services. Reversed and remanded.

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• Fraudulent payment. Most states punish the act of
  knowingly writing a bad check. Also paying with a
  stolen credit card, which is forgery and
  possession of stolen property. Forgery is the
  unauthorized alteration, completion or making of
  a written instrument.

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• False arrest Proceed with caution. In many
  states it is illegal to detain a guest if he in
  fact did not commit a crime. Rather call the
  police.