Albuquerque Hilton Inn v. Haley

• Decision Date: 29 June 1977
• Docket Number: No. 11292,11292
• Citation: 1977 NMSC 51,90 N.M. 510,565 P.2d 1027
• Parties: ALBUQUERQUE HILTON INN, Petitioner, v. Mary HALEY, Respondent.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

Page 1027

565 P.2d 1027

90 N.M. 510

ALBUQUERQUE HILTON INN, Petitioner, v. Mary HALEY, Respondent.

No. 11292.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

June 29, 1977.

[90 NM 510] Shaffer, Butt, Jones, Thornton & Dines, Stephen M. Williams, Albuquerque, for petitioner.

Toulouse, Krehbiel & DeLayo, Leonard J. DeLayo, Jr., Albuquerque, for respondent.

OPINION

EASLEY, Justice.

This case arose as a civil action for damages in the District Court of Bernalillo County. The trial court, finding § 49-6-1, N.M.S.A.1953 (Repl. Vol. 7, 1966) applicable, granted the motion of defendant-appellee-petitioner (hereinafter Hilton) for partial summary judgment against plaintiff-appellant-respondent (hereinafter Haley). The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for trial with each of the panel writing a separate opinion basing the inapplicability of § 49-6-1, supra, on different grounds. We granted Hilton's petition for writ of certiorari, and now reverse the Court of Appeals.

The facts pertinent to disposition are as follows. On September 18, 1974, the plaintiff, Mrs. Haley, arrived in Albuquerque on a Texas International Airlines (TIA) flight. The airline informed her that her luggage had been inadvertently transferred to Los Angeles. Mrs. Haley told TIA that she was staying at the Hilton. The next morning, her retrieved luggage was delivered to the Hilton; a receipt was signed by the desk clerk, the luggage placed on the bell stand and a bellhop called to carry the bags to Mrs. Haley's room. By the time the bellhop arrived, the luggage had disappeared. It has never been found. Mrs. Haley made repeated inquiries at the desk as to the whereabouts of her luggage and was repeatedly informed that it had not yet been delivered. When she finally contacted TIA, she was shown the receipt indicating delivery to the hotel.

Mrs. Haley sued the Hilton for compensatory ($5,000.00) and punitive ($25,000.00) damages, basing her complaint on Hilton's alleged wrongful refusal to return her luggage or compensate her for its loss (Count I) and also for its refusal to assist her as promised in her attempts to locate her luggage (Count II). Nowhere in the complaint do allegations of theft or negligence appear, nowhere does the claim for relief purport to be based on or limited by the hotelkeeper's liability statute, § 49-6-1, supra. Hilton moved for partial summary judgment as to any liability beyond the $1,000.00 maximum allowed by that statute. Mrs. Haley's motion in opposition to Hilton's motion claimed that the statute did not apply (1) because it pertained only to loss of property "brought by . . . guests into the hotel" and she had not so brought the missing luggage, and (2) because it worked a deprivation of property without due process of law. The trial court granted Hilton's motion, declared that the hotelkeeper's statute applied to limit liability, awarded Mrs. Haley judgment against Hilton for $1,000.00 accordingly, and granted judgment for Hilton as to any liability in excess of that amount.

Mrs. Haley appealed the judgment, arguing the same grounds set forth in her motion in opposition to summary judgment at trial. The Court of Appeals reversed, agreeing with appellant that the statute did not apply and that there were genuine issues of material fact requiring trial.

We decline to adopt the reasoning of the Court of Appeals (Lopez, J.) that the statute only applies to property brought physically into the hotel by the guest or his agent. Furthermore, neither the other theories advanced by the other specially-concurring members of the panel nor the constitutional arguments presented to the two lower courts are properly before us on certiorari. Nor is consideration of these points necessary since we agree with the trial court that the statute does apply and reverse the Court of Appeals accordingly.

The statute in question provides in pertinent part that the liability of hotelkeepers for loss of guests' property is not to exceed the sum of $1,000.00. It is beyond question that the statute is in derogation of the common law rule, which provided sternly that the innkeeper was answerable as an insurer (regardless of absence of negligence) for loss of the goods, money, and baggage of his guest, except for the acts of God, the public enemy or the guest himself. As this court stated long ago (Horner v. Harvey, 3 N.M. (Gild.) 307, 309, 5 P. 329, 329-330 (1885)):

The liability of innkeepers is strict, and justly so . . .. The law of civilized countries benignantly protects men away from home, and from those resources with which the denizen or citizen can guard himself from wrong, and protect his property from loss or injury. When the traveler comes to an inn and is accepted, he instantly becomes a guest. The innkeeper when he accepts him and his goods becomes his insurer, and the innkeeper must answer in damages for the loss or injury of all goods, money, and baggage of his guest, brought within his inn and delivered into his charge and custody . . ..

Accord, Landrum v. Harvey, 28 N.M. 243, 210 P. 104 (1922).

As a general rule, statutes in derogation of the common law are to be strictly construed. State v. Chavez, 70 N.M. 289, 373 P.2d 533 (1962); El Paso Cat. Loan Co. v. Hunt et al., 30 N.M. 157, 228 P. 888 (1924). However, this statute was obviously enacted to ameliorate the effect of the harsh common law rule, and as a remedial statute in derogation of the common law a different rule applies. In re Gossett's Estate, 46 N.M. 344, 351, 129 P.2d 56, 60 (1942) sets forth that rule:

Where a statute is both remedial and in derogation of the common law it is usual to construe strictly the question of whether it does modify the common law, but its application should be liberally construed. Archer v. Equitable Loan Assurance Society, 218 N.Y. 18, 112 N.E. 433; Ex Parte Dexter, 93 Vt. 304, 107 A. 134; Chicago, B. & Q. R. Ry. Co. v. Dunn, 52...