Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-12-06
AN IMPORTANT DRCIsION.
The Liability Of Hotel Keepers ln
Case of Fire.

AN IMPORTANT DECISI0N.
TAe LIABILITY OF Hotel Keepers in
Case Of Fire.
The following decision by Judge CLARK
rendered on Monday in the case OF
Moore vs.. the Long Bsach Development
Company. possesses considerable inter
est for the hotel and boarding-house
keepers. The attorneysin in the case were
Nessrs. Scarborough, Chapman & Hen
bricks for the plaintiff, and Messrs. Lee,
Gardner & Scott and A. B. Hotchkiss
for the defendant. The decision Is as
follows:
This is an action brought by the
plaintiff to recover the value of certain
personal property destroyed by fire at
the burning of the Long Beach hotel on
the night of November s, 1888. The
complaint alleges that said hotel was q
public inn and was kept, maintained and
conducted rs such by the defendant
corporation.
That on the evening of said November
8, 1888, the plaintiff and his family put
up and were received into said inn. as
guests and travellers, and brought with
them their baggage, consisting OF wear
ing apparel, jewelry, money, etc., and
the same WAS received in said
inn, and placed in rooms as
signed to plaintiff and his
family. That on the night Of said Nov
smber 8, 1858, said hotel was destroy ed
by fire through the negligence of defend
an t, and said property consumed and
lost. There are two additional counts in
the complaint. setting forth the same
facts with respect to the wife of the
plaintiff, and one Mrs. Hansen, the
family servant; and that their respective
claims have been assigned to plaintiff.
The answer adnf{ts tina. the defendant
owned the Long Beach hotel, and the
same was DESTROYED by FIRE, as alleged,
bat denies the other material allegations
of the complaint. It also alleges that
the business of keeping or conducting a
public inn is and was beyond the COR
porate powers of the defendant corpora
tion. The principal issues presented are
therefore:
First. Was the business Of conduct
ing public inn by defendant ultra
wires?
Second. Was the Long Beach hotel
conducted as public inn at the time
plaintiff and his family were received
there?
Third. Were plaintiff and his family
received as guests and travellers, or were
they received as boarders? The doctrine
10 we'll settled that a corporation, being
creature of statute, has no power to do
any act, or enter into any contract, ex-
cept such as the statute directly or by
fair implication gives. In other
words q corporation may do any act
which it is expressly authorized by it's
charter or articles of incorporation to do,
and may do any act which though not
expressly authorized by its charter, is
carry into effect the powers expressly
given. As to what are the incidental
powers of corporation, or what acts are
reasonably necessary to carry into effect
its express powers, courts have always
adopted liberal rules of construction. As
was said in the opinion in Vsndall
vs. San Francisco Dock Company, 40
CAL, 80, where it was held
that corporation Incorporated for the
purpose of buying, improving and selling
real estate, had incidentally the power
to apply o portion of it's funds to q rail-
road which ran near but not upon land
that it owned, for the purpose of increas-
ing facilities and lessening the cost of
transportation to the same-"that in ex-
amining this question, We must neces-
sarily consider the general purpose for
which the corporation was formed, and
must give such reasonable construction
to the terms employed as will tend
to promote rather than defeat or
obstruct the ends for which the
corporation was organized" The general
purpose for which defendant corporation
was organized, was to buy and sell land
ut profit. It's articles of incorporation
recite that the purposes for which it is
incorporated are contracting for, buying,
renting, mortgaging and giving deeds OF
trust for real property in Los Angeles
county; for the purpose Of buying, de-
veloping, owning and selling water and
water rights; of erecting, buying and
owning hotels, etc. 1t is commended by
plaintiffs counsel, and think correctly,
that defendant having the express power
to buy or build and own hotel building
has the implied power to use it for the
purposes for which it was intended.
But whether this be 60 or not, l am
Of the opinion that the conducting of q
public inn by defendant was not neces-
sarily ultra uires. In the case of the
Miners Ditch Company vsrsus Zeller-
back, 81 Cal. $50, Mr.. Justice Sawyer,
quoting the language Of Justice Earle in
the case of the Mayor Of Norwich versus
Norfolk Railroad Company, 80 E. L. and
=. r. 128, says that the doctrine relat-
ing to the defense of ultra pi,es was in
troduced by the East Anglican railway
case, and that ths contract
there in question being a
contract by one railway company to pay
the costs of another incurred in applying
to Parliament, was judicially perceived,
from the terms of the contract itself, to
be necessarily unconnecsed with the pur-
pose of defendants incorporation, and
therefore prohibited; that that was the
point in the case, and that he under
stood the Court to have meant, and the
rule to be, that any contract which, in
the knowledge of the party who should
sue upon it, was intended for purpose
unconnected with the purpose of the in.
corporation, was prohibited.
That If the contract itself appeared to
be necessarily unconnected with the
purpose of the incorporation, both par
ties must have known it to be SO and the
Court iudicislly perceived it to be void.
That If the contract was not necessarily
30 unconnected, the ground of its illegal.
ity must be averred and found in the
usual way before it could be ground of
Judgment. This language, +
think, applies to the case
h0 hn