CHAPTER SIX: Negligence and hospitality practices Part 1

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CHAPTER SIX Negligence and hospitality
practices Part 1

• Duties owed guests in rooms
• Clean room. A hotel is required to exercise due
  care to have the rooms cleaned before reassigning
  them.
• Beds and furniture. Cannot be defective. Must
  inspect furniture regularly and replace old, worn
  out or broken furniture.
• Windows etc. Same duty of care and to inspect for
  defects is the rule here. Therefore it is
  important to maintain fixtures in good condition.

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CHAPTER SIX Negligence and hospitality
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• Electrical and heating hazards. Must furnish safe
  heating.
• Animals and Insects. Duty of reasonable care.
  Liability if negligent.
• DeLuce v. Fort Wayne Hotel. Woman bit by rat in
  hotel while a guest there. becomes very ill. The
  front doors of the hotel had been open and rats
  lived in an alley just 70 feet away. The hotel
  would be liable only if they knew or had reason
  to know that rats would pose a problem.

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CHAPTER SIX Negligence and hospitality
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• Bathroom appliances and hot water. Same rules of
  negligence apply.
• Lonsdale v. Joseph Horne. Malfunctioning faucet.
  Guest gets injured. But did the owner know or by
  the exercise of reasonable care (inspection)
  should he have known that the faucet would
  malfunction. If plaintiff cant prove that, then
  judgment for the defendant.

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CHAPTER SIX Negligence and hospitality
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• Duties owed to guests and others in public areas
• Lobby. Frequently visited. Special precautions
  should be taken. Regular inspection. Make sure
  hallways are not blocked, there are no bumps,
  holes etc. When repairing/cleaning, use sign and
  barriers to warn.

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CHAPTER SIX Negligence and hospitality
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• Elevators. Rule of law is to use ordinary care,
  but some states require a higher degree of care.
• Operator assisted elevators Maintenance of
  elevator is a NON-DELEGABLE DUTY. The hotel
  cannot push the liability on a service company.
• Self-service elevators High degree of care
  because self operated.
• Freight elevators Only liable if careless.
• Supervision of maintenance If under repair, use
  ropes, signs etc. so guests do not attempt to use
  it.

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CHAPTER SIX Negligence and hospitality
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• Doors. Same standard of care.
• Revolving doors If an establishment has
  revolving doors and they know that a big crowd
  will be using them, it is their duty to hire
  attendants.

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CHAPTER SIX Negligence and hospitality
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• Automatic doors
• Landmark Hotel v. Moore. An old woman is injured
  while trying to enter the hotel through sliding
  glass doors. They close before she has gotten
  through. The hotel challenges the judgment based
  on Res Ipsa Loquitur, but there is no evidence of
  joint control. Also the court found that the
  accident was not of the type that could occur
  without negligence. Also the hotel did not
  inspect the doors every 6 months as required.

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CHAPTER SIX Negligence and hospitality
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• Supervision of installation and maintenance
  NON-DELEGABLE duty to keep the guests safe, but
  maybe reimbursement from a negligent
  subcontractor.

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CHAPTER SIX Negligence and hospitality
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• Hallways. When floors are being waxed or washed,
  the hotel must post warning signs.
• Stairways, steps and carpets. To avoid liability,
  the hotel must 1) see that steps are properly
  constructed, 2) keep them in good condition, 3)
  install railings, 4) avoid leaving items on the
  steps, 5) provide adequate lighting and 6) be
  sure that carpets are safe and in good condition.

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• Fields v. Robert Chappell Ass. Gap in concrete
  steps. erosion of concrete. guest falls and
  injures herself. The hotel was aware that the
  steps were old and that they had not been
  repaired. Liable.

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CHAPTER SIX Negligence and hospitality
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• Robinson v. Western Intl Hotels. Guests use the
  valet parking system. they give the hotel their
  car key. when they are leaving, the hotel is
  unable to locate the key. they are asked to
  follow an employee to the key booth. this means
  that they have to go through an employee only
  area. The step from the walkway to the key booth
  is very high and on the way out, the pl. falls.
  When an owner invites another person onto his
  premises, he is liable for damages to that person
  sustained due to the lack of ordinary care. Also
  liable for defects which would have been
  disclosed during a normal inspection. The basis
  is superior knowledge, so if the invitee knows of
  the hazards beforehand there is no duty to warn
  and no liability for injuries, because their
  level of knowledge was the same. Then it is
  assumption of risk.

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CHAPTER SIX Negligence and hospitality
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• Duty owed in restaurants and dining rooms
• Slippery floors. Usually waxed floors. the
  restaurant has to be negligent, e.g. over waxing.
  Also the floors must be kept in good condition
  and the lighting must be adequate.
• Foreign substances on floors. The key issue is
  whether the def. was or should have been aware of
  the substance.

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• Stout v. Restaurant Concepts. Slip and fall case.
  Woman falls in restaurant because of dim light
  and a grease spot on the floor which is not
  visible. The manager states that she had
  inspected the floor 5 minutes prior to the fall
  and that it was restaurant policy to inspect and
  clean constantly during a night. The plaintiff
  failed to prove that the restaurant was aware of
  the substance or would have known if it was
  exercising reasonable care.

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CHAPTER SIX Negligence and hospitality
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• Placement of chairs and tables. How close can
  chairs be, how big of a passage should be allowed
  for guests.
• LaPlante v. Radisson Hotel. Banquet where the
  tables are so close together that the waiters
  cannot pass along the sides but are forced to
  send the food from person to person starting in
  one end of the table. Later the light were dimmed
  and the pl. got up and started walking towards
  the exit. but she was seated in the middle of the
  row and on the way out she tripped and fell
  because her leg got caught in one of the legs
  from a chair. Maybe liable.

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CHAPTER SIX Negligence and hospitality
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• Hanging mirrors in dining rooms. A restaurant
  must make sure that big mirrors on the walls are
  secured firmly and must inspect frequently.
• Ceilings. If improper built, it can cause law
  suits.

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CHAPTER SIX Negligence and hospitality
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• Bank of New York v. Ansonia Associates. A ceiling
  collapses in a shop. One is killed and several
  injured. The experts agree that the ceiling was a
  disaster waiting to happen. The reason is that in
  the ceiling were hanging so many heavy things
  such as lamps and air conditioners, none of which
  were secured to anything other than the plaster
  ceiling. The owners had had more than one
  opportunity to fix it and they had also
  experienced falling debris from time to time.
  Liable for negligence.

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• Serving flambe food.
• Young v. Caribbean Ass. Boy goes to dessert line
  in restaurant. as he walks up, the waiter in
  charge of flambe, adds more rum to the dessert.
  something goes wrong and a big flame reaches out
  and sets the boys shirt on fire. he suffers
  severe burns. The restaurant was negligent
  because the waiter poured rum directly from the
  bottle and because he did not make sure that the
  stopping spout was secured to the bottle.

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• Serving hot liquids. There have been a number of
  cases involving hot liquids in recent years. The
  rule seems to be that it is foreseeable that
  customers may spill hot liquids and liability MAY
  result if the liquids was so exceedingly hot that
  they cause burns and warning should be made.