Boston is a large tourist destination for people inside and outside of Boston, Massachusetts. As such, hotels in Boston are numerous, as are injuries resulting from those hotel stays. The injury attorneys at the Boston Law Office of Neil Burns can help if you are injured while staying in Boston, Massachusetts. Some of the injuries that occur while staying in Boston area hotels include falling in the bathroom or shower/tub areas.
An example of an injury occurring at a hotel in Massachusetts involves the case of Deloria v. The Druker Company, Ltd. (Lawyers Weekly No. 81-345-10)). The case involved the question of whether there was “the existence of a danger,” concerning a hotel’s bathtub area. In the case, “The plaintiff argues on appeal that the motion judge erred in concluding as a matter of law that the raised floor of the hotel bathtub was an open and obvious condition and that there was no genuine issue of material fact as to whether the condition of the bathtub was unsafe and defective. Guided by our decision in Quinn v. Morganelli, [73 Mass. App. Ct. 50 (2008)], we agree with the plaintiff that the jury reasonably could have found that the bathtub posed a danger to the plaintiff, and that the defendant knew or reasonably should have known of that danger. … The deposition testimony of the plaintiff about her failure to perceive the change in level between the floor of the bathroom and the bathtub, her failure to notice the warning posted, and the report authored by the plaintiff’s expert, would reasonably allow the jury to draw such a conclusion.
“Reasonable jurors could also differ in their opinion as to whether the bathtub configuration constituted an ‘open and obvious’ danger. Although the change in level between the floor of the bathroom and tub was certainly open to inspection, we cannot say as a matter of law that, upon stepping out the tub after a shower, the lengthy step down would be obvious without visual cues alerting one to that fact. Consequently, the plaintiff may proceed on both failure to warn and failure to remedy theories. …”