Security Management Magazine, \"A Hotel\'s

¶ … Security Management magazine, "A Hotel's Exposure to Costly Negligent Security Claims Is Controllable" by Osborn and DePasquale opened with the story of a man in an Atlanta hotel parking lot who was shot while removing luggage from his trunk. The hotel's security officer saw the crime and called the police. Still, the man who had been shot sued the hotel for negligence, arguing that the crime was foreseeable and that he should have been warned. A judge ruled in the hotel's favor, despite the fact that there was ample evidence that the parking lot has been the site of dangerous encounters before, and often. A higher court reversed the decision. Osborn and DePasquale use that story to begin an examination of the issues of foreseeability as it pertains to liability in products and services, and to make the case that it is often accounting decisions that prevent business entities from being more aggressive either in providing more substantial safeguards, or admitting to a degree of liability/culpability, or changing conditions to obviate the problem.

LEGAL ISSUE

As noted, the legal issue underlying this article revolves around foreseeability in determining liability. The term itself, foreseeability, is, as the authors noted, interpreted differently by courts and laypeople, and because of this, discovery often enters the legal picture. Discovery involves demonstrating loss or harm as the result of the business organization's failure to adequately 'foresee' a dangerous situation and either remedy that situation, or warn people off.

A second issue that arises in, especially, hotel cases is the extent of the hotel's duty to foresee situations and protect patrons. In fact, the authors noted that, because hotels often cater to people many hundreds of miles from home, and therefore lacking their ordinary support systems, hotels have often performed to, and been legally held to, higher standards of duty to their patrons than other businesses have been held to.

MANAGERIAL PERSPECTIVE

In the case of the man being shot in the parking lot, it is likely that the crime could have been prevented by a number of means. Even though it would likely require an expansion of staff, porters could have been provided to meet all hotel patrons in or walk them to their cars in the parking lot or garage. Alternatively, they could have secured the parking lot itself with a controlled access entry and a gatekeeper, ensuring that robbers would at the very least have a difficult time gaining access.