Question #2

According to the Court the Duty of Care that a hotel owes a guest are as follows:

“The law imposed upon innkeepers’ at least ordinary or reasonable care to protect their guests against injury by third persons, and some cases call for the exercise of a higher degree of care.”

Allegedly the hotel was negligent in the following areas

1.) Permitting Criminals, sex deviates, and vagrants to wander discriminately about the hotel

2.) Failure to maintain a competent staff of employees

3.) Failure to maintain adequate security personnel

4.) Failure to summon the police immediately

5.) Failure to have the hotel security officer investigate the incident as soon as it was reported to a hotel employee

The facts that were used to determine that there was a breach of duty were as follows

1.) There was a lack of staff and more specifically security personel at the hotel the night of the attack. They estimated that the hotel was at a capacity of 1000 – 1200 guests along with an additional 1000 people attending a banquet and the only staff on hand was a Bellhop, Doorman and Front desk person with the only security officer having gone home for night with an illness.

2.) The crime was reported to the Hotel staff by a guest in the room next door to the nordmanns as it was occurring and it took 40 minutes for the police to be summoned. A complete lack of regard was shown by the hotel staff during this time by first transferring the distress call from one employee to another and than the second employee saying later that “They cant call the police every time someone calls them”

Just as a side note it seems to me that the Hotel knew it was in the wrong because this whole appeal is based almost solely on the grounds of technicalities such as the Jury not filling in the correct