75-73-5 - Hotels and innkeepers; liability for valuables of guests.
§ 75-73-5. Hotels and innkeepers; liability for valuables of guests.
No innkeeper, whether individual, partnership or corporation, who constantly has in his inn an iron safe or suitable vault in good order and fit for the safe custody of money, bank notes, jewelry, articles of gold and silver manufacture, precious stones, personal ornaments, railroad mileage books or tickets, negotiable or valuable papers, bullion, and who keeps on the doors of the sleeping rooms used by his guests, locks or bolts, and on the transoms and windows of said rooms suitable fastenings, shall be liable for the loss or injury to any such property suffered by any guest, unless such guest has offered to deliver the same to such innkeeper for custody in such iron safe or vault and such innkeeper has refused or omitted to take it and deposit it in such safe or vault for custody and to give such guest a receipt therefor.
Provided, however, that the innkeeper of any inn shall not be obliged to receive from any one guest for deposit in such safe or vault any property hereinbefore described exceeding a total value of five hundred dollars ($500.00), and shall not be liable for any excess of such property, whether received or not; but such innkeeper may, by special agreement with a guest, receive for deposit in such safe or vault any property on such terms as they may agree to in writing. Every innkeeper shall be liable for any loss of the above enumerated articles by a guest in his inn caused by the theft or negligence of the innkeeper or any of his servants.
Sources: Codes, Hemingway's 1917, § 2066; 1930, § 5107; 1942, § 7152; Laws, 1912, ch. 137.