The Law of Negligence: Injuries of Guests During a Hotel Stay - Paper Example

If a guest in a hotel is injured during a hotel stay, at a conference, or when attending a public party, the guest may decide to sue the hotel. In this instance, the guest may cite negligence and try to prove that the hotel, venue facility or club could have tried to put in place measures to ensure that it would have helped t prevent the injury. The law of negligence is defined as a breach of legal duty to take care which results in damage to the plaintiff. The tort is not usually concerned with harm inflicted intentionally, but rather it is alarmed with harm imposed accidentally or through want of care. Moreover, negligence can be used to refer to a hotels lack of reasonable care to ensure that it provides safety to its clients. In fact, an injured individual (Simon) does not have to prove that they knew about the unsafe condition in the instance that they can prove that the hotel did not exercise reasonable care in preventing the harm to the client. Some of the reasonable care actions that the hotel should have exercised reasonable care in order to prevent the injury from occurring. Such actions may include, inspecting the equipment on a regular basis, screening the backgrounds of employees, and ensuring that they provide supervision and training to a hotel employee.

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To establish negligence, the plaintiff must prove

Defendant (hotel) owed a duty of care to Simon (plaintiff).

The Hotel was in breach of the duty of care

The damage is caused by the breach which is not to remote a consequence of the defendant's action and which the plaintiff has suffered (Stimson, 2016).

According to Lord Atkins, the moral law that you must love your neighbor becomes law that you must not injure your neighbor. A neighbor is any person who is likely to be injured by my activities. In order to succeed in a tort of negligence, the plaintiff has to prove that the defendant owed him a duty of care (Robbennolt and Hans, 2016). The two basics of liability terms in a hotel are foreseeable and reasonable. It is imperative to comprehend that a foreseeable harm in a hotel is one that a sensible hotel manager should have the know-how that it could occur due to the omissions or actions of the hotel. It is the obligation of the hotel to prevent it from occurring.

In the case of Donoghue v Stevenson

In the case a manufacturer of ginger beer sold ginger beer to a retailer in an opaque bottle the retailer sold the bottle to a friend who treated a young woman of her acquaintance with the contents.it was alleged that this contained decayed remains of a snail that had found its way to the bottle in the factory. The young woman Mrs. Donoghue alleged that she became extremely sick after drinking the contents in the bottle. She sued the manufacturer of the beer for negligence (Sentell Jr, 2016).

Mrs. Donoghue could not sue the retailer of the beer for breach of contract as she did not buy the beer herself, the contract had been made between the retailer and her friend she, therefore, brought an action against the manufacturer (Park and Lim , 2014).

In these case, for example, the restaurant owed a duty of care to Simon. The duty of care is broken when the waiter fails to control the cork and injures him in the process. The fact that there is no pledged relationship does not bar Simon to sue in tort and not contract (Markovits, 2015).

Liability of the hotel for employee conduct

Vicarious liability is a legal theory that states that a hotel may be liable due to the conduct of their employees. However, it is impervious to comprehend that the liability of the hotel comes to play if the actions of the employee were performed within the scope of their employment. A hotel is liable for the actions of their employees even if the hotel did not have the direct sanction of the conduct, does not have direct control of the incident, unaware of the incident and, supervision of the employee at the time of the accident occurring (Levy and Sacks, 2016).

Basing on the rule with every wrong comes a remedy ,Simon can, therefore, bring an action against the waiter and is entitled to a number of remedies:

Burden of Proof

In order to meet the burden of proof, Simon must have sufficient evidence to depict that the hotel had an obligation to protect him from harm, the hotel breached one of its key duties by permitting Simon to be injured, and that the injury that Simon had resulted in identifiable and specific damages. The damages in this instance include therapy and medical bills, crutches, pain, and suffering (Han , 2014).

Evidence to prove your claim

Simon has to contact the manager of the hotel so as to meet his burden of proof. Simon has to link his injury to the event that caused the injury (Wojciechowska-Solis et al., 2016). Simon has to contact the manager as soon as possible. If he is not seriously injured, then Simon has the option of waiting for the manager in the restaurant (Sarda, 2016). Most hotels have policies regarding such incidences, and Simon thus has the option of letting the manager complete the report in his presence. Simon may also talk to witnesses while waiting for the manager to provide medical assistance (Orchard, 2016). Simon should not rely on only one witness.

The other responsibility that Simon has is to ensure that he gets photos and video. The audio can be used to record statements from witnesses, the versions of events leading to the incident and employee admissions (Sandoval, 2015).

Proof of damages

Simon has to complete his burden of proving since without one then he does not have a claim. Simon has to make copies of his medical bills, bandages, receipts of gasoline used for all trips, doctors office parking lot fees and receipts for prescriptions (Tavitiyaman and Ko, 2015).

Contacting the insurance company of the hotel

Simon has to contact the insurance company of the hotel so as to receive a claim number. It is this claim number that will be used in future correspondence with the hotel. It is imperative that Simon waits until all his medical treatment and physical therapy run the third course so that he can begin settlement negotiations (Hasnas, 2014).

If the injuries that Simon had are of soft tissue, including bruises, sprains and minor cuts, then he can probably handle his own claim. However, if the injuries that were sustained were serious such as second or third-degree burns, head trauma or broken bones then Simon should consider hiring a personal injury attorney (Haeffner , 2015).

In the case of Simon, the areas of interest that should act as a basis for suing the hotel include;

Hotels Breach of its Responsibilities and Duties

A hotel has to inspect the premises, ensure that the premises are kept reasonable safe and dangerous conditions have warnings so as not to breach its duty to guests (Tran, 2015).

The hotel must cause the injury of the guest

The defendant (Hotel), must cause the plaintiff (Simon), the injury (Lederman, 2016). Moreover, the incident must be reasonably foreseeable to the Hotel in that the actions of their employees could cause injury to (Simon Cusimano and Roberts, 2016).

In conclusion, the law of negligence is defined as a breach of legal duty to take care which outcomes in damage to Simon. The tort is not usually concerned with harm inflicted intentionally, but rather it is alarmed with harm imposed accidentally or through want of care. Moreover, negligence can be used to refer to a hotels lack of reasonable care to ensure that it provides safety to its clients. Morris (2016) notes that a hotel is liable for the actions of their employees even if the hotel did not have the direct sanction of the conduct, does not have direct control of the incident, unaware of the incident and, supervision of the employee at the time of the accident occurring. Moreover, vicarious liability is a legal theory that states that a hotel may be liable due to the conduct of their employees (Gifford and Robinette, 2014). However, it is impervious to note that the liability of the hotel comes to play if the actions of the employee were performed within the scope of their employment (Keating, 2016). A hotel is liable for the actions of their employees even if the hotel did not have the direct sanction of the conduct, does not have direct control of the incident, unaware of the incident and, supervision of the employee at the time of the accident occurring.

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