Peter T. Tomaras, CHA, FMP
Peter T. Tomaras is not an attorney. He managed hotels for 27 years and taught hospitality management (including hospitality law) for 10 years. He recently retired from 15 years of providing expert witness testimony to litigators in hospitality cases. He may be reached at innkeeper88@att.net.
Reasonable Care: Two Cases That Illustrate Its Vital Importance
A hotelier’s duty of reasonable care has already been established. The following incidents show how deficiencies in reasonable care can result in guest injury and consequent liability for negligence.
Case No. 1
At a limited-service property...
Principal–Agent Relationships: Examining a Hotelier’s Liability for the Acts of Its External Service Providers
Hotel companies sometimes hire independent entities—persons or firms—to provide certain guest services. In most such cases, the laws of agency are in play: the hotel is the principal that empowers someone else (an agent)...
Reasonable Care: Two Legal Cases That Illustrate the Scope of the Hotel Operator’s Duty
Hotels are places of public accommodation where the duty to provide reasonable care and safe premises extends to group activities in function rooms. In an illustrative case, after downtown bars closed, an “after-party” moved...
Lodging’s Legal Environment: Two Cases That Illustrate the Vital Importance of Reasonable Care by...
Hoteliers understand that they work in an environment fraught with legal implications, multiplied by myriad municipal, state, and federal statutes and regulations. Large hotel companies employ risk management professionals focused on safeguarding people and...