PRIVATE HOTELS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLX, Issue 22028, 30 July 1941, Page 7

PRIVATE HOTELS

Affected By Legal Ruling

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, July 29. In the light of a judgment given by Mr J. H. Luxford, S.M., to-day, proprietors of private hotels may find themselves in a difficult position in the case of the property of guests being stolen on the premises. There was a widespread belief, he said, that the Common Law liability of an innkeeper attached only to licensed publicans, in other words, that houses licensed under the Licensing Act, 1908, were the only common inns in New Zealand. Whether a place was a common inn or not was always a question of fact. Once a person held out that he was ready and willing to receive travellers he became Hable as an Innkeeper to every guest whose property was lost or damaged while staying at his inn, if the person was a traveller when he was received and maintained that status at the time the loss occurred. Mr Luxford commented that, whatever the reason it was that caused the Legislature in 1881 to take away from innkeepers, other than Ucensees, the protection afforded by the Act of 1886, it would not apply to-day. Many private hotels now existed in all parts of the Dominion and were indispensable to the travelling public. An increase in the number of licensed hotels was to all intents and purposes a legal impossibiUty, except In districts where restoration was carried. Consequently, the number of private hotels was likely to Increase. Yet, if his understanding of law was correct, the proprietor of a private hotel might be the keeper of a common inn, but in respect of the guests’ goods was without the protection which the Legislature had given to licensed publicans. Neither had he the right to sell goods over which he might acquire an innkeeper’s Hen. The case was one in which £44/6/was claimed for goods stolen from a bedroom, and judgment for plaintiff for £35 was given with costs.