CHAPTER EIGHT: Guests and other patrons

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CHAPTER EIGHT Guests and other patrons

• What is a guest? The visit must be for the
  primary purpose for which a hotel operates.
  Usually people are not considered guests unless
  they require accommodations. Even people
  attending a conference at a hotel are not guests
  unless they register.
• Wallace v. Shoreham Hotel. Pl. was no guest,
  therefore no liability.

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CHAPTER EIGHT Guests and other patrons

• Intent of parties Where there is an intent for
  the person to become a guest of the hotel, that
  is enough. The relationship between a hotel and
  an individual is contractual.

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CHAPTER EIGHT Guests and other patrons

• Registration. This clearly states intent, but it
  is not essential to establish that. Less can be
  enough depending on the circumstances.

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CHAPTER EIGHT Guests and other patrons

• Langford v. Vandaveer. Two guys book rooms for
  four people, but say that all four are men.
  however two of them are under age women. One of
  the women gets hurts. The intention of the woman
  was definitely to become a guest, but the
  question is, whether she was perceived as such by
  the innkeeper. Here the innkeeper had no
  knowledge of her presence in the room, had never
  seen her or talked to her and had never perceived
  her as a guest. But the question is whether the
  innkeeper saw the women in the car or not. Did he
  see them, he would have understood that they
  would be occupying the room with the two men and
  that would have made them guests.

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CHAPTER EIGHT Guests and other patrons

• Delivery of property. If a person, before he
  registers, gives the luggage to the personnel, he
  has an intent of becoming a guest. The hotels
  intent is evidenced by their acceptance of the
  luggage. The responsibility starts here. If
  people leave luggage with the hotel but do not
  intend to become guests, there is no such
  relationship.

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CHAPTER EIGHT Guests and other patrons

• Adler v. Savoy Plaza. A woman gives the hotel her
  luggage even though she is not going to check in
  before the next day. She had requested
  reservation from the day she arrived, but when
  she did, there were no rooms available. She was
  in and out the hotel all day while waiting for a
  room. Finally the hotel got her a room in another
  hotel for the night. She took all her luggage
  except one with valuables. When she returned to
  the hotel the next morning to start staying
  there, the suitcase was missing. The woman was
  considered a guest of the hotel in this case.

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CHAPTER EIGHT Guests and other patrons

• Freudenheim v. Eppley. A man arrives to a hotel
  where he has been a lot of times. Everybody knows
  him there. It is early in the morning, so the
  cashier is not there yet to put his briefcase in
  the vault. When he arrives, he greets the man and
  puts his suitcase in a vault, giving him the tag
  afterwards. This is intention enough on both
  sides to make the man a guest and not less.
  Registration is not a requirement.

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CHAPTER EIGHT Guests and other patrons

• Guests illegal acts If the guests false
  representation does not contribute to their
  injuries, neither false registration nor an
  illegal purpose in occupying a room would effect
  their status as guests.

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CHAPTER EIGHT Guests and other patrons

• Termination of guest innkeeper relationship Ends
  when any of the following events happen 1) the
  contracted time has elapsed, 2) the bill is not
  paid when due, 3) due notice is given to vacate
  the hotel, or 4) the bill has been paid. However
  guests are allowed some time to remove their
  luggage after checking out.

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CHAPTER EIGHT Guests and other patrons

• Landlord-tenant relationship If stay is
  permanent, then tenant and the landlord has
  different obligations than to a guest. What
  determines this? 1) Terms of the contract, 2) The
  extent of control exercised by the owner. The
  more control, the more likely the occupant is a
  guest, 3) The rental rate interval. The shorter
  the interval, the more likely the occupant is a
  guest, 4) Length of occupancy.

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CHAPTER EIGHT Guests and other patrons

• The longer the stay, the more likely the occupant
  is a tenant, 5) Incidental services offered.
  Housekeeping and roomservice are often associated
  with guest, not tenant, 6) Whether the room has
  cooking facilities, if yes, likely to be a
  landlord-tenant relationship, 7) The kind of
  furnishings in the room and who owns them. These
  are not all the factors and none of them is by
  itself determinative. But there must be an
  express or implied mutual understanding between
  the two parties as to the nature of the stay.