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PLAINTIFF’S DECEDENT COMMITTED SUICIDE BY JUMPING FROM A LEDGE OUTSIDE HIS HOTEL ROOM; HOTEL STAFF DID NOT ASSUME A DUTY OF CARE FOR PLAINTIFF’S DECEDENT; A DELAY AFTER A FAMILY MEMBER’S REQUEST THAT HOTEL STAFF CALL THE POLICE WAS NOT DEMONSTRATED BY EXPERT OPINION TO HAVE CAUSED THE SUICIDE (FIRST DEPT).

The First Department, reversing Supreme Court, in a full-fledged opinion by Justice Pitt-Burke, over an extensive dissenting opinion, determined the defendant hotel did not assume a duty of care for a hotel guest who committed suicide and did not proximately cause plaintiff-decedent’s suicide. Hotel staff had been made aware of decedent’s family’s fear that decedent, who was in a room at the hotel, was suicidal. Hotel staff checked on the decedent, who indicated he was “fine.” Subsequently a family member, who had been communicating with decedent, asked hotel staff to call the police. The crux of the lawsuit is the allegation that a delay in calling the police caused decedent to commit suicide. After breaking into decedent’s locked room, the police found decedent on a ledge outside the window and unsuccessfully tried to talk him back into the room:

An entity in control of a premises, “whether [it] be a landowner or a leaseholder, is not an insurer of the visitor’s safety” … . Absent a duty of care, there is no breach and no liability, regardless of how careless the conduct … . * * *

Plaintiffs … contend that defendants breached an assumed duty of care when they agreed to check on the decedent after being informed of his suicidal ideations and failed to act carefully or reasonably in contacting the police.

While “one who assumes a duty to act, even though gratuitously, may thereby become subject to the duty of acting carefully” … , a defendant can only be held “liable for a breach of an assumed duty where the plaintiff shows reliance on the defendant’s course of conduct, such that the defendant’s conduct placed him or her in a more vulnerable position than he or she would otherwise have been in had the defendant done nothing” … . * * *

… [T]he record on appeal clearly shows … that despite defendants’ delay in calling the police, a period of at least thirty minutes elapsed from the time the police entered the hotel and decedent jumped from the ledge in the police officer’s presence. Beadell v Eros Mgt. Reality, LLC, 2024 NY Slip Op 02496, First De[t 5-7-24

Practice Point: A landowner or leaseholder in control of a hotel is not an insurer of a hotel guest’s safety and does not owe a duty of care to hotel guests absent the assumption of a duty to act (not the case here where a hotel guest committed suicide).

Practice Point: The expert opinion evidence here fell short of demonstrating that hotel staff’s delay in calling the police at the request of decedent’s family was the proximate cause of plaintiff’s decedent’s suicide.

 

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