Opinion ID: 2351385
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Heading: The loss of the watch

Text: Absent statutory regulations limiting their liability, innkeepers and hotel keepers are by the common law insurers of the property of their guests committed to their care and are liable for its loss by theft or otherwise, or for injury to it, except when caused by the act of God, the public enemy, or the neglect or fault of the guest or his servants. And the liability extends to all types of personal property of the guest, including moneys and watches, which are placed within the inn or hotel, and is not limited to such as are reasonably necessary for the current use of the guest. Wagner v. Congress Square Hotel Co., 1916, 115 Me. 190, at 191-192, 98 A. 660; Levesque v. Columbia Hotel, 1945, 141 Me. 393, 44 A.2d 728. The evidence disclosed that the defendant motel corporation was duly licensed as an innkeeper within the City of Waterville and that its bond, purportedly given pursuant to 30 M.R.S.A. § 2753, [2] was approved by the licensing board of Waterville under 30 M.R.S.A., § 2752. Thus, were it not for our present statute regulating the nature and extent of liability for loss or injury to guests' property (30 M.R. S.A., §§ 2901, 2902, 2903 and 2904), the defendant's responsibility in the instant case for the loss of Mrs. Brewer's watch would be unquestionable. But, our Court in Wagner, supra, stated that the then 1913 statute is a comprehensive one. It was intended by the Legislature to substitute for the former legislation on the subject. It has remained the same to the present day, except for unsubstantial changes in phraseology, to the extent that the immunities set up for the protection of operators of inns, hotels and the like, might need to be upgraded to reflect the present inflationary status of the economy as compared to 1913 values. But these concerns are not those of the Judiciary, but rest within the realm of legislative action. Our present Act displaces the common law except where, within the statutory ceiling of liability, the common law remains operative. Section 2901, [3] as interpreted by this Court in Wagner, supra, limits the innkeeper's liability to $300 for the loss of any of the articles or property of the kind specified therein and this, whether the conditions of the section respecting safe, vault, locking doors, windows and transoms, the posting of the law itself, have been complied with or not. The property covered by section 2901 includes the guest's money, bank notes, jewelry, articles of gold and silver manufacture, precious stones, personal ornaments, railroad mileage books or tickets, negotiable or valuable papers and bullion. Section 2902 [4] permits the innkeeper to make special arrangements to receive for deposit in the safe or vault any property upon such terms as they may in writing agree. But, under this section, liability for loss of the articles or property accepted for deposit under section 2901, where all the conditions of section 2901 have been met, within the limit of $300 as provided by section 2901 (exclusive of the situation where by specific terms a different arrangement is made in writing between the innkeeper and his guest), is not that of absolute liability under the common law, but the innkeeper is liable for theft or negligence on his part or that of any of his servants. Section 2903 deals with liability of an innkeeper to a person intending to be a guest of any inn, where the prospective guest's baggage or other articles of property are delivered for safekeeping elsewhere than in the room assigned to the guest. Responsibility for loss is made dependent upon the negligence of the innkeeper or of his servants or employees. There are no monetary limits attached to this section, and it clearly dispels any notion that any common law rule of absolute liability might be invoked. With this section, we are not concerned in the present case. Section 2904 [5] determines the responsibility of any innkeeper for loss of or injury to his guest's personal property other than the property described in sections 2901, 2902 and 2903 and unequivocally states that liability within the limits therein provided shall be that of a depository for hire (excepting losses by fire not intentionally produced by the innkeeper or his servants). This section permits an innkeeper to assume greater liability by agreement in writing. It also covers property of the guest kept by the innkeeper after the relationship of innkeeper and guest has ceased or property received by him prior to the inception of the relationship, where the holding of the baggage or property may be, at the option of the innkeeper, at the risk of the owner. It is to be noted that section 2904 is general in scope and covers all innkeepers. The plaintiff contends that the defendant corporation never qualified for the statutory exemption from the common law rule of absolute liability, because, although licensed as an innkeeper, it never furnished the proper bond pursuant to 30 M.R.S.A., § 2753. See footnote 2, supra. The bond revealed that no corporate seal was affixed to it, nor that any surety or sureties, as required by the statute, subscribed the same. Assuming for the purposes of this decision that the bond was statutorily insufficient for the failure to have the corporate seal [6] and for the absence of sureties thereon [see, Irving v. City of Highlands, 1898, 11 Colo.App. 363, 53 P. 234], nevertheless, we conclude that the plaintiff's contention must fail. A violation of 30 M.R.S.A., §§ 2751 to 2754 subjected the corporation to the possible recovery of penalties against it in favor of the municipality. [7] Proper licensing pursuant to statute was not included as one of the required conditions under which the exemption from common-law absolute liability was granted to innkeepers in case of loss of or injury to their guest's property. The legislative language is clearly to the contrary. Thus, before she can recover the maximum amount of $300 under the terms of the statute for her diamond wrist watch regarding which she testified to a fair market value of approximately $400 at the time of loss on the theory of common-law absolute liability because the defendant innkeeper had not complied with the conditions of section 2901, the plaintiff must bring herself within the terms of that section. Otherwise, her recovery would be governed by the limitations of section 2904. The plaintiff's diamond wrist watch, to be covered under section 2901, must be either jewelry or a personal ornament. The evidence does not reveal of what metal manufacture the watch was; we cannot surmise or conjecture that it might be an article of gold or silver manufacture as described in the reference section. In Ramaley v. Leland, 1871, 43 N.Y. 539, 3 Am.Rep. 728, the New York Court said: A watch is neither a jewel or ornament, as these words are used and understood, either in common parlance or by lexicographers. It is not used or carried as a jewel or ornament, but as a time-piece or chronometer, an article of ordinary wear by most travelers of every class, and of daily and hourly use by all. It is as useful and necessary to the guest in his room as out of it, in the night as the day-time. It is carried for use and convenience and not for ornament. But it is enough that it is neither a jewel or ornament in any sense in which these words have ever been used. In Kennedy v. Bowman Biltmore Hotel Corporation, 1935, 157 Misc. 416, 283 N.Y.S. 900, it was held that a wrist watch while ornamented with diamonds was primarily an article of daily use and not a jewel, ornament, or precious stone within the meaning of the New York statute which used similar terminology as our own Act. The Nebraska Court in Leon v. Kitchen Bros. Hotel Co., 1938, 134 Neb. 137, 277 N.W. 823, 115 A.L.R. 1078, after citing Wagner v. Congress Square Hotel Co., supra, with approval, reached the same result as did the New York Court in the case of a lady's platinum diamond wrist watch. It concluded that if the Legislature had intended to include in that part of the statute an article of such general and common use as a watch, it would have used the word watch and not relied on the terms jewelry and personal ornaments. We fully agree. We are aware that the Tennessee Court has ruled to the contrary. Rains v. Maxwell House Co., 1904, 112 Tenn. 219, 79 S.W. 114, 64 L.R.A. 470, 2 Ann.Cas. 488. By this conclusion we do not suggest that a given article is, ipso facto, precluded from qualifying as jewelry or personal ornaments solely because it includes a watch. A time-piece might be designed and arranged as a part of an item such that it, and its practical function of telling time, are truly incidental to a manifestly predominant overall purpose of the article as an adornmentin which situation it might legitimately qualify as jewelry or personal ornament within the meaning of the present statute. On the other hand, that which in its objective nature is revealed as primarily and essentially aimed at the practical function of telling time and, is, therefore, basically a watch does not become transformed into jewelry or a personal ornament, for purposes of the present statute, solely because it might be rendered interesting or unusual by some accompanying decoration even in the form of precious stones. The criterion of judgment, therefore, is the predominant function of the article as disclosed objectively by its nature, construction and assemblage. Our conclusion in the instant situation is that the evidence is insufficient insofar as it has shown the article here involved to be only a diamond wrist watch of market value of approximately $400.00 at the time of the lossto sustain the ultimate burden of proof reposing upon plaintiff to establish that the article was jewelry or a personal ornament because its predominent function was other than that normally conveyed by the basic designation that it was a watcha mechanism to serve the utilitarian function of providing its wearer with information as to the time of day. Since the plaintiff's wrist watch did not come within any of the types of property enumerated in sections 2901, 2902 or 2903 of the statute, it came within the terms of section 2904 which limits the responsibility of the innkeeper to that of a depository for hire, and in the case of miscellaneous effects including personal belongings to the limit of $50. As stated in Wagner v. Congress Square Hotel Co., supra, at page 195 of volume 115 of the Maine reports, at page 662 of volume 98 of the Atlantic Reporter, [a] depositary for hire is liable only for failure to exercise ordinary care, or, as it is sometimes expressed, such care as men of ordinary prudence usually exercise over their own property under like circumstances. The Justice below ruled as a matter of law that there was no obligation on the part of the defendant innkeeper to anticipate the unforeseeable intrusion of the plaintiff's assailant into her chambers through the open bathroom window and thus there was no breach of due care for which the defendant was responsible in damages either for injuries to her person or for the theft of her property. In this, there was no error. The entry will be Appeal denied.