Hotelmanagement - Employee dates a guest

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Hello,
I am studying international hotelmanagement.
For my assignment I have to prepare a legal issue.
I already looked it up in several law books without success.

Maybe someone here can help me

The Human Resources Department of The Almaz Hotel (in Barcelona) has been asked by the GM to develop a policy on dating- should employees be allowed to go out with guests staying at the hotel. The HR Director is unsure whether this would interfere with individual's personal lives, so she decides to do some research as to how other hotels handle this issue. The Almaz is locally owned and operated, but under a franchise contract with the Ramada chain. In the meantime, a front office worker does go out to dinner with a guest. This hotel employee has too much to drink, and the couple wind up in a car accident. The guest suffers serious injury. Upon recovery, she sues both The Almaz and Ramada. What would she need to prove?

The questions I have to answer in the Assignment are the following:

Whether Damage was suffered
Whether the Injured Party was owed a Duty of Care
Whether there was a Breach of this Dute
Whether there is a Causal Link between this Breach and the Damage

Maybe someone can give me a few advices whether the Almaz or Ramada is liable for this accident or not.

Thank you very much!

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Explore and study international hotel policies on socializing with the customers.

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@lisali93,

No, neither the Almaz nor the Ramada are responsible for the accident
that occurred while the employee was off duty and attending to his personal business.

If the employee had an accident while chauffeuring the guest during regular working hours, this would be different, but no employer can be held responsible for their employees once they're off work.
That's absurd!

If the hotel had a clause in their employee contract stipulating that employees cannot date guests under any circumstances, then the employee would be in breach of contract and subject to immediate dismissal. Yet, the employee would still be responsible for the accident, regardless.

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@lisali93,

What an employee does off-the-clock is their business. Though if the employee and guest met up at work while the employee was working that could get trickier.

I'd think so long as the non-work relationship stuff occured off-site and not during working hours, it's no reflection of the hotel in terms of possible liability.

If the employee used their position to compel or coerce the guest into being with him "we need to talk about your bill" or the like, then liability could become a thing.

But if the interaction was just, "Would you like to go out for drinks after I get off work?" I don't see that being any fault of the hotel.

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Hotelmanagement - Employee dates a guest

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