Edward and Rose checked in as hotel guests. They were directed by the desk clerk to proceed unaccompanied through the patio area to their room to drop off their hand luggage. Then they returned to the main building. But when Edward returned alone to his room through the patio he was assaulted and beaten by an unknown man who was never apprehended.
The Edward suffered a neck injury, a cut lip resulting in a permanent scar, finger injury, head injury, eye injury and a thumb sprain. Evidence showed that shortly before the incident, the doorman had failed to notify hotel security, as he was supposed to do, of a suspicious male whom he had ordered to leave the premises. The patio area of the attack on Edward was enclosed by trees and heavy foliage and was not well lighted.
When Edward sued the hotel for damages, the hotel owners replied that a hotel is not an insurer of the safety of its guests beyond its obligation to have a reasonable security system with sufficient personnel and equipment. There had only been one previous incident of a criminal attack on a guest at the hotel, the owners emphasized.
If you were the judge, would you rule the attack on Edward could have been avoided and the hotel is liable for his damages?
The judge said yes.
”There is clearly a difference between a hotel lobby where guests of all kinds mingle and a passageway to the hotel guest rooms,” the judge explained. ”When individuals become involved in a sudden altercation in a hotel lobby, there are no precautions which the hotel management might take. Such public area attacks are unavoidable,” he noted.
But the attack on Edward occurred in the patio, which was a private place that was not brightly lit as a public place, the judge continued. In such places a hotel has an obligation to provide heightened security to avoid assaults on its guests such as this avoidable attack on Edward.
On the issue of foreseeability, since there had been previous criminal attack incidents at the hotel, although not exactly like this one, greater security might have avoided this injury, the judge ruled. Based on the evidence of Edward`s injuries, medical bills and pain he is awarded $268,279, the judge concluded.
Based on the 1991 U.S. District Court decision in Van Blargan vs. Williams Hospitality Corp., 759 Fed.Supp. 940.
