I am a manager of a hotel and had a guest excessively urinate on one of our mattresses. There was so much that we had to replace the mattress. I charged the guest for the mattress and his company paid for it initially. He is fighting reimbursing his company for the cost of the mattress and they are looking to possible fire him over this. I guess my concern at this point would be if he tries to come back to the hotel to file a lawsuit against us for his losing his job over a damaged mattress. What legal footing would I have to stand on if that would come about?
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Mattress Mishap
- Thread Starter rascal11
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I would've thought your insurance covered a guest peeing the bed.
Unless and until you get served, it's impossible to say what "legal grounds you have to stand on" because you don't know what the claim is against you. FWIW I can't see how you were at fault in any of the above - you didn't pee the bed, and if his company wants to fire him, that's up to them, not up to you.
Unless and until you get served, it's impossible to say what "legal grounds you have to stand on" because you don't know what the claim is against you. FWIW I can't see how you were at fault in any of the above - you didn't pee the bed, and if his company wants to fire him, that's up to them, not up to you.
cbg
Super Moderator
I don't know what state the poster is in but I worked for a hotel for five years and as I recall, state law in my state expressly gave us permission to charge a guest for damage done to property, though I have a vague idea there may have been a dollar limit. You might want to investigate that if you don't already know.
I work in human resources so I can address the other question as well. Rascal11, you have no legal liability whatsoever if the guest is fired. 49 out of 50 states are what is called employment at will, meaning that the employee can quit at any time and for any reason, and the employer can fire him at any time and for any reason not expressly prohibited by law. I assure you that in no state would this reason be expressly prohibited. In the 50th state (Montana) an employee can be fired for cause, and causing damage to a third party's property is most assuredly cause.
In the unlikely event that the guest works under an employment contract or CBA that expressly spells out what he can and cannot be termed for and this violates the contract, his beef is with his employer, not with you, as the other responder points out.
You cannot stop him from suing you, but it is unlikely in the extreme that he will win - against you, at least.
I work in human resources so I can address the other question as well. Rascal11, you have no legal liability whatsoever if the guest is fired. 49 out of 50 states are what is called employment at will, meaning that the employee can quit at any time and for any reason, and the employer can fire him at any time and for any reason not expressly prohibited by law. I assure you that in no state would this reason be expressly prohibited. In the 50th state (Montana) an employee can be fired for cause, and causing damage to a third party's property is most assuredly cause.
In the unlikely event that the guest works under an employment contract or CBA that expressly spells out what he can and cannot be termed for and this violates the contract, his beef is with his employer, not with you, as the other responder points out.
You cannot stop him from suing you, but it is unlikely in the extreme that he will win - against you, at least.
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