What must a plaintiff prove to recover for an assault or battery? If a dog bites a person, is the owner liable for doctor's bills? What does a person have to prove to win a slander or libel claim? Does the average member of the public have any privacy rights? Can a person recover damages for injuries sustained on someone else's property? Is an owner of property liable for using deadly force to defend their property? What remedies does a railroad worker, who is injured while working, have? What is a slip and fall action?

I fell and hurt myself on a hotel's premises. Do I have any recourse against the hotel?

A hotel may be liable if you slip or trip and fall on the hotel premises -- for example, on spilled food or drink in a hotel bar or restaurant, snow and ice that has not been cleared from a walkway, or on moist tile floors or other slick surfaces. You might also be hurt because of a design or building flaw (such as steps that are too steep) or the hotel's failing to light an area properly.

Does a hotel have any special obligation to protect guests around the swimming pool?

Because swimming pools create a potentially dangerous situation, hotels must be especially vigilant in designing, maintaining and controlling access to them. Disclaimers such as "swim at your own risk" are unlikely to protect a hotel from liability if it didn't use sufficient care to protect its guests, such as failing to install a fence around a pool. This is true even if you are drunk. Most courts require hotels to anticipate that children, inebriated guests and others might find their ways into the pool if safeguards don't keep them out.

Is the hotel responsible if I am the victim of a crime at or near the hotel?

A hotel cannot be held liable for crimes committed on or near the hotel premises unless it should have anticipated the crime (for example, the hotel is in a very high crime area) and could have prevented it, either by providing sufficient warnings or taking better security measures. In such situations, the hotel's general duty to warn you about dangerous conditions may extend to a duty to warn about crime in or around the hotel. Furthermore, the hotel's actions -- such as failure to install proper locks on windows and doors, provide adequate lighting in parking areas or take adequate measures to ensure that passkeys are not used by criminals -- may make the hotel at least partially liable.

Copyright 2005 Nolo

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