2 Daly 102 | New York Court of Common Pleas | 1866
The testimony in the case being conflicting, we must assume that the justice found the plaintiff’s statement to be true in every particular in which it differed from that of the witnesses for the defendants. It appeared that the plaintiff came to New York on the 26th of July, 1865, and stopped at the Merchants’ Hotel, kept by the defendants, and remained there as a guest for three or four days; that he was going to Jersey City to see a gentleman, and determined to give up his room at the hotel; that he went to the office of the hotel, where he saw the general clerk of the defendants, and gave up his room, telling the clerk that he was going away. He gave the clerk his valise. The clerk came
The plaintiff was himself a hotel keeper in the city of Washington, and as he left his valise with the intention of returning, without paying his bill, it may be a question, as the relation of innkeeper and guest existed when he left, whether it did not constructively continue during the period of his temporary absence (Grinnell v. Cook, 3 Hill, 490; Robinson v. Walter, 3 Bulst. 269 ; York v. Greenaugh, 2 Ld. Ray. 688; 1 Salk. 388 ; Mason v. Thompson, 9 Pick. 280; Wvntermute v. Clark, 5 Sandf. S. C. 247; Morris v. The Third Avenue Railroad Co., 1 Daly, 205). But it is not necessary to pass upon that question. The plaintiff, upon leaving for New Jersey, put his valise in charge of the general clerk of the defendants; and they had a lien upon it for the plaintiff’s entertainment, as his bill had not been paid. Whether regarded, therefore, as an ordinary bailment, or as property in the defendants’ hands, which they had a right to detain until the lien upon it was discharged, the defendants were bound to the exercise of ordinary care and diligence. If they could not produce it when required, it was for them to show how it had been lost; and if they could not explain the manner of its loss, the presumption would be that it was lost through their negligence, unless they
The judgment should be affirm ed.