48 Ky. 72 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1848
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This action on the case was brought to recover from Kisten, as an inn keeper, a large sum of money alleged to have ^een taken> through the default and negligence of the defendant, his servants, &c., from the trunk of the plaintiff, in the inn of the defendant, he [the-plaintiff, being then a guest therein. The form of proceeding against inn keepers in England, upon the custom of the realm, seems 1o have been substantially pursued.
The law with regard to the liability of inn keepers being one of extreme rigor, it is essential to the safety of all persons who may be engaged in the business of entertaining others in their houses for reward, that the extent of its application should be clearly defined, and that it should not be carried beyond its proper limits.
An inn keeper is prima facie liable for all losses which happen to the goods of his guest in his inn, all such being attributed to him on the ground of public policy,
His duty extends chiefly to the entertaining and harboring of travellers, &c., and therefore, if one who keeps a common inn refuses to receive a traveller,, or to find him in victuals, &c. for a reasonable price, (without good excuse, as that his house is full,) he is liable not only to a civil action, but to an indictment. For having taken upon himself a public employment, he mast serve the public to the extent of that employment. {Bacon’® Ab. Inns and Inn keepers, C. I.)
One who lodges and entertains strangers at a watering place, wffio come to drink the waters, if he entertain no others, is not thereby an inn keeper: {Bacon’s Ab. Inns and Inn keepers, B.) So the keeper of a: coffee house or a boarding house, is not as such, an inn keeper?
We greatly doubt whether the evidence in this case is sufficient to authorize the conclusion that the defendant was an inn keeper, or that professedly, or in point of fact, he had assumed the business of receiving and entertaining the travelling public generally, or that his character or business or employment was such as to preclude him from refusing to receive and entertain any person at his own pleasure, or to render him liable either to an action or an indictment for such refusal. As the
keeper of a common inn may have inmates of his house, for a reward, to whom he may not be under the strict liability of an inn keeper; so may the keeper of a boarding house occasionally entertain transient persons without acquiring the character, or being under the responsibilities of an inn keeper. And certainly a man professing to be the keeper of a boarding house, or a licensed coffee house, is not, though, he also entertain travellers, liable to his boarders as an inn keeper is liable to his travelling guests. Conceding then, that the evidence authorized the jury to find that the defendant was an inn keeper, because he occasionally entertained travellers, it is also, certain that his professed and ordinary business was that of the keeper of a coffee house and boarding house. And although the evidence is not very explicit with regard to the character in which the plaintiff was an inmate of the house, we think it was suf
The Court having undertaken on its own motion to state the law to the jury, should have stated the law as applicable to the whole case, leaving to them the decision of all questions of fact arising on the evidence. And as the Court had not started the liability of an inn keeper, we think the incorrect statement of the plaintiff’s counsel in his concluding argument to the jury, should have been corrected at the request of the defendant’s counsel.
Wherefore, the judgment is reversed, and the case remanded for a new trial in conformity with this opinion.