Marriott gives away guest’s stuff, fights compensation in court

https://viewfromthewing.com/marriott-gives-away-guests-stuff-fights-compensation-in-court/

by josephcsible • 4 years ago

21 14 4 years ago

tl;dr: Someone walked up to the front desk of the San Francisco Marriott, claiming that he checked baggage with them but didn't have his claim check ticket or ID. The hotel staff let him into the bag room to take whatever he claimed was his. The rightful owner of the stolen baggage took Marriott to court after they refused to compensate him for the loss. An appeals court ruled that even though the theft was entirely due to Marriott's negligence, section 1859 of the California Civil Code meant that Marriott only owed him $1,000, despite the baggage's value being over $8,000.

EDIT: Corrected the amount that the court ruled Marriott owed him.

dragonwriter4• 4 years ago

An appeals court ruled that even though the theft was entirely due to Marriott's negligence, section 1859 of the California Civil Code meant that Marriott only owed him $500, despite the value of the stolen luggage being over $8,000.

It actually ruled $1,000 in damages, plus interest and court costs.

If it wasn't due to Marriott ’s negligence, there would be no liability at all. Civil Code § 1859 explicitly limits liability of an “innkeeper, hotelkeeper, operator of a licensed hospital, rest home or sanitarium, furnished apartment house keeper, furnished bungalow court keeper, boardinghouse or lodginghouse keeper” for personal property losses to $1,000 in aggregate, and $500 “for each trunk and it's contents”, $250 each for “each valise or traveling bag and its contents”, “each box, bundle or package and its contents”, and “all other personal property of any kind” in the absence of advance written consent for greater liability.

The law is certainly outdated, but it's pretty cut and dried, so it's hard to see how a court could reasonably have ruled otherwise. (Actually, the court was clearly pissed off about the law, and about Marriot not just fully compensating the customer, which is why the judge calculated the interest not on the legally recoverable damages, but the full value of the possessions.)

josephcsible2• 4 years ago

It actually ruled $1,000 in damages, plus interest and court costs.

Fixed, thanks.

The law is certainly outdated, but it's pretty cut and dried, so it's hard to see how a court could reasonably have ruled otherwise.

Agreed. I don't fault the court at all here. I fault Marriott for exploiting a loophole rather than doing the right thing, and I fault the California legislature for the loophole's existence.

op00to• 4 years ago

Travel insurance looking pretty good. Wonder if the Marriott card gives you luggage protection!

retrac• 4 years ago

The law doesn’t increase liability with inflation (since 1872!) and hasn’t been amended since 1980.

This is one of my legal bug-bears. It really needs to be fixed. To use an example in my jurisdiction, theft becomes the equivalent of a felony when the value of the item stolen exceeds $5000. This law dates to the 1940s. That's about $65,000 today. It was not the intent of the legislature that stealing a cheap car carry up to 10 years in prison. At this rate it will soon be a felony to pinch a particularly nice steak.

The problem applies to every fixed dollar value in legislation. Fines are another big one. I'm pretty sure city council intended litterers to lose more than about one hour of average wages for littering in public.

bandyaboot• 4 years ago

Not sure which jurisdiction your example is from, but in a lot of places, the slow (real) reduction in the threshold for a felony is a feature, not a bug.

pope_meat• 4 years ago

Number 1 in prisoners per capita, I guess if that's the goal, mission accomplished.

What a garbage feature, I'd like word with the devs.

dragonwriter4• 4 years ago

Thomas Jefferson would point out the problem isn't that the dollar amounts don't automatically adjust but that laws (including the Constitution itself) don't automatically sunset, requiring active readoption.

jet_32951• 4 years ago

Why is it that Marriott seems to be over-represented in this kind of issue? One doesn't see Hilton or Intercontinental involved in shafting their guests.

Marriott gives away guest’s stuff, fights compensation in court

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