Hotel and Motel Accidents

There are many ways in which someone can visit a hotel and get hurt, including a slip and fall, food poisoning at a hotel restaurant or buffet, or being the victim of a criminal act committed by a third party such as assault, robbery, or rape. In a hotel accident, the injuries and damages may be significant. Before you can recover for medical bills, physical therapy costs, lost income, or non-economic losses like pain and suffering, you will first need to prove that hotel ownership or management breached a duty owed to you.

Regarding slip and fall incidents, property owners in Tennessee may be responsible if they created a dangerous condition. If the dangerous condition was created by someone or something else, the owner may still be liable if it knew about the condition but failed to take reasonable steps to address and/or correct the issue. Witnesses can be helpful in proving notice of a dangerous condition, as can photographs of the scene or video footage of what happened. A skilled hotel accident lawyer in Memphis can assist you in gathering the evidence needed to pursue your claim.

Typically, a Tennessee business owner has no duty to protect customers from criminal acts of third parties that occur on its premises. However, a legal duty could arise when the owner knows, or has reason to know, that criminal acts against customers are reasonably foreseeable. Knowledge can come from what the owner has previously observed or from past experience. Satisfying this legal burden will almost always involve a balancing test and consideration of exactly what information was or could have been available to the owner.

For example, a hotel may be responsible for damages if it fails to provide adequate security or allows criminals to enter a guest’s room undeterred. For example, hotels have been sued by rape victims when the front desk gave a non-guest the room key to one of the hotel’s guests without verifying his identity or asking any questions. After getting the key, the perpetrator had free reign to wander the hotel, enter the guest’s room, and commit sexual assault. Proving that a hotel breached a duty owed to you is often best proved through expert testimony.