Adler v. Savoy Plaza Inc. 108 N.Y.S.2d 80 (1951) This is an action for the loss of

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Adler v. Savoy Plaza Inc. 108 N.Y.S.2d 80 (1951)

This is an action for the loss of jewelry and personal effects contained in a suitcase which was delivered by plaintiff to defendant for safekeeping. The claimed value of the jewelry was something over $20,000 and the claimed value of the personal effects about $3,300.

The facts are as follows: The plaintiff was accustomed to staying at the defendant’s hotel whenever she visited New York and had been a guest of the hotel many times. She and her husband had requested reservations for May 15, 1946. Upon their arrival at 10 o’clock that morning, they were advised that their reservation was for the following day, but that the hotel would try to accommodate them, so they registered, hoping that a room might be assigned during the day. At the same time, they delivered their luggage to the bell captain, and it was deposited in a section of the lobby set aside for the luggage of arriving and departing guests. Plaintiff’s husband attended to business during the day while plaintiff was in and out of the hotel. When both returned to the hotel in the afternoon, they found that a room was still not available, so they whiled away some time in the lounge bar and had dinner in the room of a friend who was a guest of the hotel.

All during the day defendant’s manager was seeking accommodations for the couple but was unable to locate any in the hotel. He finally secured accommodations for them for the night at the Sherry Netherlands Hotel where they registered at about 8:00 p.m., taking with them two suitcases and a cosmetic case, and leaving the suitcase with the valuables and two matching cases at defendant’s hotel.

When plaintiff returned to defendant’s hotel the next morning to take up residence for two or three weeks and requested delivery of her luggage, the large suitcase was missing. During the night the suitcase had been delivered by the night manager of the hotel to an imposter. The circumstances of this delivery are not altogether clear as the night manager was deceased at the time of the trial. Whether there was some complicity on the part of one or more of the hotel employees, as plaintiff suggests, we are not called upon to surmise.

[One of] the questions as to the [hotel’s liability for the lost] jewelry, was whether plaintiff was a guest of the hotel.

… We are prepared to rule as a matter of law on the admitted facts that plaintiff was a guest.

Suppose the plaintiff did not have reservations and the hotel was full, but she was allowed to leave her bags for the day while she looked for a room elsewhere. Would the plaintiff qualify as a guest?