An employee stayed at a hot spring resort hotel for a company project meeting.
However, in the early hours of the next day, he fell naked from the balcony of his hotel room and was seriously injured.
The accident is bizarre, who is responsible?
Afterwards, the employee brought the hotel involved and the travel agency that took over the company's board and lodging matters to the court for compensation on the grounds that they had not fulfilled their security obligations.
Recently, after the case was heard by the Guangzhou Tianhe Court, all claims of the employee were dismissed.
It is reported that the Civil Code clearly stipulates the obligation of security protection.
Text/Zhong Xiaodan, correspondent of the articles of association of all media reporters of Guangzhou Daily
Stay in a hot spring hotel
Injured after falling from building the next morning
In March 2019, Company A plans to hold a company project meeting and entrust a travel agency to undertake matters such as food and lodging.
According to the unified arrangement of the travel agency, Xiao Li, an employee of company A, stayed in room 215 on the second floor of a hot spring resort hotel operated by a company.
That night, Xiao Li and his colleagues met for a dinner near the hotel, during which they drank.
The corridor monitoring can be seen. After eating, roommate A Qiang first went back to the room to sleep, and at 0:00 the next day, Xiao Li returned to the room.
In the morning, when roommate A Qiang woke up, he found that Xiao Li was not in the room, and there was no trace of sleep on the bed. He asked other colleagues, but he did not know where he was going.
After some searching, Xiao Li was found on the ground floor on the negative floor just below the balcony of Room 215.
I saw him lying flat on his back, basically unconscious, with multiple fractures and bleeding, head injury, and serious injuries.
Everyone immediately called the police and sent Xiao Li to the hospital for emergency treatment.
However, the video surveillance failed to capture the specific process of the fall.
After on-site inspection and multiple investigations by the public security organs, it was determined that Xiao Li had fallen from the building, and this case was not a criminal case.
Xiao Li believes that there are obvious safety hazards in the hotel's balcony facilities, and the operator has failed to fulfill its reasonable security obligations; the travel agency, as the organizer of the conference, has not conducted the necessary safety review of the conference venue and notified it in a timely manner.
Both of them are wrong, and should compensate more than 270,000 yuan for medical expenses, nutrition expenses, lost work expenses, etc., as well as disability compensation and mental damage consolation.
Because the negotiation failed, the unfortunate Xiao Li sued the hotel operator and the travel agency to the court.
The hotel argued that Xiao Li fell in the room by himself, and there was no problem with the balcony railing.
The travel agency thought it had nothing to do with them at all.
Court rules fall victim to bear responsibility
After hearing the court, the court held that the room facilities, operation management and accident handling of the hot spring resort operated by the defendant hotel company all met the relevant standards, and had fulfilled reasonable safety and care obligations; and the defendant travel agency had also completed the services that led to the conclusion of the service contract. content.
The defendant's hotel company and travel agency were not at fault in the legal sense for the plaintiff's fall from the building and were injured, and were judged not to be liable for compensation in accordance with the law, rejecting all of Xiao Li's claims.
The magistrate Lu Xiao pointed out that after analyzing the specific reasons for the accident, roommate A Qiang said that he fell asleep and did not know what was going on. When he woke up in the morning, he only saw Xiao Li's mobile phone thrown on the balcony of the room.
Due to the lack of eyewitnesses or other direct evidence, Xiao Li was injured on the brain and could not accurately recall and describe the process at that time. Therefore, according to the evidence of the whole case, considering that there is a small indoor hot spring pool on the inside of the balcony, combined with general logic, it can be identified as Xiao Li. In the early morning, when he was naked in his room after drinking, he accidentally fell from the balcony railing and fell to the ground on the first floor and was injured.
The key to whether hot spring hotels and travel agencies need to bear civil liability is whether they have violated the service agreement and whether they have fulfilled their security obligations.
Lu Xiao said that in the analysis of the possible causes, Xiao Li fell from the balcony railing and was injured, so whether the height of the balcony railing in the room involved meets the corresponding standards is the key to determining whether the hotel is at fault.
In this case, the balcony involved is located on the second floor, and the net height of the balcony railings has exceeded 1.10 meters. It is set vertically and parallel, and the interval and bottom do not violate the national standards. Even if the height of the negative floor is added, the balcony railings are set in compliance with the regulations.
And there is a "Do Not Climb" reminder sign on the wall. There is an indoor hot spring pool next to the inner side of the balcony. There are emergency call buttons and hot spring precautions and warm reminders on the side wall.
Therefore, the hotel balcony facilities do not pose a safety hazard to the customer's fall accident.
The travel agency as a third-party platform has completed the service
According to the evidence on record, the hot spring hotel has the legal qualification to operate a resort hotel.
At the time of the incident, Xiao Li returned to the guest room fashionably and consciously, and there was no obvious abnormality. From the appearance, it was not enough to judge that he was deeply intoxicated and needed urgent care from the hotel, and there were roommates in the room.
Therefore, the hot spring hotel is not at fault for Xiao Li's return to his room to rest after drinking.
The accident in this case happened in the early hours of the morning. The place where Xiao Li fell was on the first floor below the balcony, which is not a common place where accidents are prone to occur.
Whether it is from the probability of falling from the building, the ability to foresee the danger, or from the inspection duty to discover the injured, it is common sense for the hot spring hotel to fail to find out that the plaintiff Xiao Li was injured at the first time, and it cannot be determined that he has not done his best. duty of care.
In this case, the defendant travel agency was only a platform to facilitate the company of the plaintiff Xiao Li to conclude a service contract with the hot spring hotel operated by the defendant hotel company through a third party.
The plaintiff Xiao Li and other colleagues have already gone through the check-in and registration procedures at a hot spring hotel with hotel management qualifications. After a comprehensive analysis of various factors found that the hot spring hotel did not violate the security obligation, the travel agency has completed the service content.
In the case that the plaintiff Xiao Li failed to provide sufficient evidence to prove that his injury was caused by the travel agency's violation of the corresponding service agreement or the failure to fulfill its security obligations, the court did not support the plaintiff Xiao Li's request for the defendant travel agency to bear the compensation liability according to law.
Judge's statement
It is necessary to comprehensively analyze the determination that there is no end to the security obligation
In judicial practice, there are often civil cases brought to court on the grounds of breaching security obligations.
On the one hand, it reflects the improvement of everyone's awareness of the rule of law and rights protection, and it also reflects that the understanding of the obligation is prone to divergences.
Lu Xiao introduced that the first paragraph of Article 1198 of the "Civil Code of the People's Republic of China" stipulates: "Hotels, shopping malls, banks, railway stations, airports, stadiums, entertainment venues and other business places and operators of public places , managers or organizers of mass activities, who fail to fulfill their security obligations and cause damage to others, shall bear tort liability." Judgment on the existence of endless security obligations should be based on relevant mandatory regulations, industry standards, combined with reality Context, focus on normative governance, and make reasonable explanations from the perspective of usual duty of care and good management, not only case theory and consequential theory.
The determination of tort liability should not only define losses and responsibilities, but also distinguish right from wrong and guide future behaviors.
In this case, in the absence of external force, the root cause of the tragedy was the accidental fall from the railing after drinking and injury.
Use wine to help you enjoy, you should stop when you can.
I hope everyone can learn from it and pay attention to safety, otherwise it will be too late to regret it.