LOST SUIT CASE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17329, 28 November 1919, Page 9

LOST SUIT CASE.

HOTELKEEPER'S LIABILITY. PLAINTIFF AWARDED £30. Judgrusnfc in the case in which Mrs. Ruby Caiman (Dr. Bamford), of Wanganui, sued George Heale (Mr. McVeagh), licensee of the Albert Hotel, for the sum of £85 I7s 6d, the value of a s\:it-case and contents left by the plaintiff at the Albert Hotel, was delivered by Mr. J. W. Poynton, S.M., at the Magistrate's Court yesterday. The facts of the case were that the plaintiff, who arrived irom Mercer by the morning train, asked for a room at the hotel. She was cold there was none vacant, but one would probably become so during the day. She afterwards brought the suit case to the hotel. It was placed on a settee in the hall, and plaintiff and her friend both stated that the attention of the clerk was drawn to the suit case, and the latter said it would be "all right." This was denied bv the clerk. The plaintiff left the hotel," and on returning at luncheon time the suit case had disappeared. The magistrate said two questions were involved in the case. One was whether ti.e plaintiff was a guest of the defendant j when the theft of the suit case took 'placT; the other was whether the suit 1 ■ cas«, was deposited expressly for safe 1 I custody with the defendant within the I j meaning of Section 174 of " The Licens- - | ing Act, 1908." It appeared to him that • when the plaintiff went to the railway ' station for her box after the conversation ' with the hotel clerk it was fully under- ' stood between both parties that she was i then a guest of the hotel, and it was not • necessary for her to partake of a meal • or occupy a bed or particular room in • order to complete the contract. * In respect to the question of liability ' for the loss of a guest's goods, the magis--8 trate held that as the suit case was not I ' deposited " expressly for safe custody " " thn liability of the hotelkeeper was "not unlimited. A hotelkeeper was liable for : goods lost from his hotel if they were f the property of his guest. The liability,

I however, was limited to £30 unless the goods were lost, stolen, or injured through the wilful act, default or neglect of the innkeeper, or such goods had been | deposited expressly for safe custody with | him. He found on the evidence that there j -was no proof of any wilful act, default, . or neglect of the hotelkeeper having caused the loss of plaintiff's goods. Judgment i , therefore was given for £30, and costs £4 119s.