The summer and holidays make hotels and motels hotspots for travelers. Whether someone is from out of town or is a local guest at its restaurant, a hotel is liable for injuries its guests incur on its property as a result of negligence. Georgia travelers could arm themselves with basic information to protect their rights in such situations.
Under premises liability law, hotel and motel property managers and owners are liable for reasonably predictable injuries that could occur on their properties. The law requires them to maintain safety or be held liable for slips and falls or other causes of injury that result from their negligence.
However, this only applies when the hotel or motel staff are aware or should have been aware of an issue. The staff are deemed negligent if they avoid or ignore a problem that may cause injury, but they cannot be negligent if they were unaware. If a guest becomes victimized by a crime while on hotel property, for example, the hotel is only held liable if the hotel was aware or should have been aware of the hazard.
For a negligence lawsuit to be successful, the victim must show that the owner or manager of the hotel or motel property breached the duty of care and caused compensable harm through negligent actions. The first element that the victim must prove is that there existed a duty of care between the guests and the hotel. To demonstrate that this was breached, the victim needs to provide evidence that the hotel staff was aware or should have been aware of the hazardous conditions.
For instance, hotels are often liable for the injuries that guests suffer after slipping and falling on wet floors. This is because wet floors are a reasonably predictable result of the staff failing to oversee and maintain dry floors. When criminal acts such as a robbery occur, however, it may be more difficult to prove that the hotels were negligent. In such situations, the victims might ask attorneys for help in building their cases.