Holly v. Meyers Hotel & Tavern

• Decision Date: 26 September 1951
• Docket Number: No. A--374,A--374
• Citation: 83 A.2d 460,15 N.J.Super. 381
• Parties: HOLLY v. MEYERS HOTEL & TAVERN, Inc.
• Court: New Jersey Superior Court — Appellate Division

Page 381

15 N.J.Super. 381

83 A.2d 460

HOLLY v. MEYERS HOTEL & TAVERN, Inc.

No. A--374.

Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division.

Argued Sept. 10, 1951.

Decided Sept. 26, 1951.

John A. Laird, Newark, argued the cause for appellant (Nathan Cholodenko, Newark, attorney).

Andrew Lawrie, Newark, argued the cause for respondent.

Before Judges McGEEHAN, JAYNE and WM. J. BRENNAN, Jr.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

JAYNE, J.A.D.

The law applicable to the responsibilities of innkeepers is of ancient origin. The most industrious and inquisitive research would probably fail to reveal when and where the first inn as such was established. The historian Herodotus awards the honor of establishing the first hotel to the Lydians. The Scriptures indicate that inns existed in Palestine and its adjoining countries. We read of the presence of 'Khans' along the highways and 'caravansaries' in the cities throughout Oriental countries. Perhaps nowhere in Europe did they more rapidly obtain an encampment than in England. Since the word 'inn' is doubtless of Chaldaic origin, literally meaning 'to pitch a tent,' it may be said that the development and maintenance of inns have gradually expanded from the humble tents of the nomads of the desert to the magnificent structures of the 20th Century which in some instances seem to shelter a small village beneath a single roof.

Yet in the main the basic principles of law relating to the innkeeper's liabilities have continued to subsist. And so it may be remarked that the keepers of the enormous hotels in the great cities and recreational resorts of the United States of the present day derive their rights and trace their responsibilities to the host of the humble village inn of medieval England. More adventurous than circumspect would be the court that endeavored to innovate in the fundamental characteristics of so serviceable a branch of the law.

A phase of an innkeeper's responsibility is presented to us for consideration by the instant appeal. While the occurrence which induced this litigation is exceptional, it is not novel. This is a case of defenstration.

Since the trial judge granted a motion for the involuntary dismissal of the cause of action at the conclusion of the plaintiff's case, our summary of the testimony is stated in its aspect most favorable to the plaintiff's alleged claim.

It is acknowledged that the defendant was in control of the management of the 66- room hotel in Hoboken at the time of the mishap and thus occupied the legal status of an innkeeper.

On the afternoon of March 31, 1949, the captain of a ship engaged three rooms at the hotel for the accommodation of a group of five Canadian sailors. The rooms so assigned were situate on the third floor, and evidently one of the rooms faced on Hudson Street. The chronological sequence of events is significant.

At 7 o'clock in the evening the sailors arrived at the hotel and proceeded to their rooms. Between 9:30 and 10 o'clock they communicated with the hotel clerk concerning the purchase of a bottle of rum. It was not supplied to them by the hotel.

At about 10:45 p.m. a female guest occupying a room on the third floor telephoned to the hotel clerk and imparted to him the information that the sailors were causing an unusual amount of noise. The clerk notified the sailors by telephone of the complaint and the sailors assured him that 'they would be quiet.' About 20 minutes later the same guest again communicated with the clerk and apprised him that 'the noise had not subsided and they (the sailors) were throwing around what sounded like a shoe.' Thereupon, at about 11:05 p.m., the hotel clerk personally announced his presence at the entrance of the room occupied by the sailors and again requested them to be quiet, asserting that otherwise they would be ejected from the premises.

Approximately two hours later the plaintiff was walking with her escort on the sidewalk alongside the hotel when a Coca Cola bottle was thrown out of the window above by one of the sailors. The bottle crashed on the pavement beside the plaintiff and a fragment of the broken glass entered the plaintiff's left eye. We may pause to state that the injury to her eye has been relatively serious.

The police were immediately summoned. The lights were still illuminated in the room inhabited by the sailors, and the police officers promptly visited the room, observed its disordered condition and interrogated the sailors except one who was on the bed drifting peacefully with the tides of sleep.

Initially there was a denial that any one of the group had thrown a bottle out of the window. The sailors were apprehended and subsequently one of them supplied the admission that in attempting to throw the bottle from the table into a waste-paper basket beneath the open window, it accidentally passed out the window. The explanatory testimony of the crafty or repentant sailor taken at some proceeding of a criminal nature was incorporated in the transcript of the evidence in the present action.

Inasmuch as the hotel clerk had been previously notified that the sailors were engaged in Throwing some object about, the court admitted testimony relating to the condition of the room upon the removal of its occupants. There were broken bottles and broken water glasses on the floor. There were 'half moon shaped' indentations on the wall with shattered fragments of glass beneath. A plywood movable closet was broken, chairs were overturned and beds pulled out of position.

It must be immediately recognized that the subject matter of this appeal is confined solely to the consideration of the legal obligations of the defendant hotel company in the circumstances, and more specifically to the determination of whether the evidence adduced by the plaintiff was sufficient to sustain a Prima facie cause of action against the hotel company for submission to the jury.

Basically the cause of action must necessarily be erected upon the existence of a duty which the defendant owed to the plaintiff and the failure of the defendant to fulfill that duty to the injury of the plaintiff. Moreover to sustain a recovery there must be some causal connection between the fall of the bottle and the omissions of duty of the proprietor of the hotel, his servants or persons for whose acts he may be held responsible. Obviously there is no proof that the hotel keeper or any servant of his threw the bottle. The case implicates a consideration of the legal relation existing between those who occupy rooms of a hotel as transient guests and the proprietor's responsibility for their acts.

The rights of the proprietor are not unrestricted. When a guest is given the key to his room, it symbolizes the surrender of the quarters to the guest subject only to such visitations at reasonable times as the proprietor or his servants may deem necessary properly to maintain the rooms and to supervise their use so that they may not become obnoxious to the proprieties of behavior, morality and the law of the land. Apart from these privileges accorded the management, the guest is entitled to possess the free and unmolested use and enjoyment of his room or apartment without interference from any one. Indeed, unwarranted and unjustifiable interference by a proprietor or his servant may occasion consequential liabilities.

On the other side, the hotel proprietor has the undoubted right and in some circumstances the duty to evict a disorderly, malevolent and incorrigible guest.

The responsibility of the hotel proprietor for the injurious consequences of the wrongful acts of his guests to outsiders is recognized in that narrow zone between his inhibitions against unwarranted interference and his duty with respect to the management of his premises exemplified by the maxim, Sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas.

The generally accepted view is that an innkeeper is liable to a stranger for personal injury where the innkeeper or his servants knew or by the exercise of reasonable care could have known that the behavior of the guest was such as to indicate to one of average prudence that the guest might commit acts which would naturally result in injury to others. Among the reported decisions on the subject of recent years are Bruner v. Seelbach Hotel Co., 133 Ky. 41, 117 S.W. 373 (Ky.Ct. of App.1909); Gore v. Whitmore Hotel Co., 229 Mo.App. 910, 83 S.W.2d 114 (Kansas City Ct. of App.1935); Wolk v. Pittsburgh Hotels Co., 284 Pa. 545, 131 A. 537, 42 A.L.R. 1081 (Sup.Ct.1925); Kapphahn v. Martin Hotel Co., 230 Iowa 739, 298 N.W. 901 (Sup.Ct.1941); Larson v. St. Francis Hotel, 83 Cal.App.2d 210, 188 P.2d 513 (Dist.Ct. of App.1948); Agsten v. Lemma, 119 W.Va. 330, 193 S.E. 545 (Sup.Ct. of App.1937). See, also, 32 C.J. 562, sec. 69; 43 C.J.S., Innkeepers, § 22, page 1173; 14 R.C.L. 538, sec. 36; 28 Am.Jur. 636, sec. 138.

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