Wakilii

Cumming v Hotel (C.A. 28-1934.)

East African Court of Appeal · [1935] EACA 25 · 1935 Appeal Dismissed AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Appeal from Supreme Court dismissing appeal from Resident Magistrate's Court dismissal of claim for damages
Decision
Appeal dismissed; innkeeper not liable for either theft due to guest's negligence

Observed later treatment

No later-treatment classification is recorded for this judgment.

Citator coverage is limited to judgments in the Wakilii corpus and source-matched treatment records. Absence of a signal is not an assertion that the case remains good law.

AI-generated summary. This summary was generated by AI from the full text of the judgment. It may contain errors or omissions—always read the source judgment before relying on it.

Holding

An innkeeper is an insurer of a guest's property but is relieved of liability where the loss is occasioned by the guest's negligence. Negligence in this context means carelessness or imprudence, not breach of duty to the innkeeper. A guest who leaves money in an unlocked drawer concealed under socks when departing for a nursing home without informing hotel staff, and who later leaves money in clothing in an unlocked room despite having suffered a prior theft, fails to exercise the ordinary care a prudent person would take. Both losses were occasioned by the guest's negligence. Appeal dismissed.

Outcome

Appeal dismissed; innkeeper not liable for either theft due to guest's negligence

Facts

Anthony Edward Cumming, a 79-year-old retired Indian Civil Servant, was a guest at Queen's Hotel, Nairobi. On 27 September 1934, he placed currency notes totalling Sh. 500-600 in an unlocked drawer under socks in his bedroom. On 29 September, he became ill and was removed to a nursing home. The hotel locked his room and the manageress held the key. Cumming did not inform hotel staff he had left money in the room. On 2 October, he sent a nurse to retrieve the money; she found only part of it. Sh. 260 was missing. On 17 October, after returning to the hotel, Cumming changed his suit at dinner time and left money in the suit he had removed. The next morning, Sh. 165/50 was missing. Cumming sued the hotel for both losses. The hotel had duplicate keys available to servants for their duties. Evidence indicated Cumming did not lock his door except when leaving the hotel entirely, and he was very deaf.

Issues

  1. Whether an innkeeper is liable for theft of a guest's money left in an unlocked drawer when the guest departed for a nursing home without informing hotel staff.
  2. Whether an innkeeper is liable for theft of a guest's money left in clothing in an unlocked room after the guest had previously suffered a theft at the same hotel.
  3. Whether the guest's conduct in each instance constituted negligence sufficient to exonerate the innkeeper from liability.

Orders

  • Appeal dismissed.
  • Costs awarded to the respondent in the Court of Appeal.
  • Costs awarded to the respondent in both lower courts.

Rules and key headnotes

Innkeeper's Liability — Common Law Duty as Insurer — Exception for Guest's Negligence
An innkeeper is at common law an insurer of the goods of a guest brought to the inn, but the innkeeper is relieved from this liability if the loss of the goods has been occasioned by the negligence of the guest.
Innkeeper's Liability — Meaning of Guest's Negligence — Carelessness Distinguished from Breach of Duty
Negligence of a guest in the context of innkeeper liability does not mean breach of a duty owed by the guest to the innkeeper, but is equivalent to carelessness or imprudence in the treatment of one's own property.
Innkeeper's Liability — Standard of Care Required of Guest — Ordinary Prudence
The test for whether a guest's negligence exonerates an innkeeper is whether the loss would not have happened if the guest had used the ordinary care that a prudent man may reasonably be expected to have taken under the circumstances.
Innkeeper's Liability — Guest's Negligence — Leaving Money in Unlocked Drawer
A guest who leaves money concealed under socks in an unlocked drawer when departing for a nursing home for an uncertain period, without informing hotel staff of the money's presence, fails to exercise ordinary prudence, particularly where hotel servants have access to the room and duplicate keys are available.
Innkeeper's Liability — Guest's Negligence — Failure to Learn from Prior Theft
A guest who, after suffering one theft of money from his hotel room, again leaves money in easily discoverable locations in an unlocked room, and who is deaf and thus unable to hear an intruder, exhibits a lack of prudence sufficient to constitute negligence that occasions the loss.
Innkeeper's Liability — Relative Standard of Care — Nature of Property and Circumstances
Negligence is relative both to the nature of the property and to the place and circumstances; greater care should be taken of money than of property less easily stolen, and what would be prudent in a small hotel in a small town might be imprudent at a large hotel in a city.

Cases cited (6)

  • Carpenter v Haymarket Hotel Ltd [1931] 1 KB 364
  • Jones v Jackson (1865) 29 LT 399
  • Cashill v Wright (1856) 6 E & B 891
  • Medawar v Grand Hotel Co [1891] 2 QB 11
  • Oppenheim v White Lion Hotel Co (1871) LR 6 CP 515
  • Cashill v Wright (1856) 6 E & B 891

Full judgment

↓ Download PDF

The original judgment as reported. Read the original PDF before relying on any passage.

Cumming v Hotel (C.A. 28-1934.) [1935] EACA 25 (1 January 1935)
Source: this page presents Wakilii’s issue analysis and metadata for a publicly reported Ugandan judgment. Any AI-generated summary is marked as such. Judgment text is sourced from the Uganda Legal Information Institute (ulii.org). Wakilii is not affiliated with ULII.