Yearly Archives: 2018

Liquor Licensing For Hotel & Restaurant Acquisitions

You are the General Counsel or the outside counsel to a hotel or restaurant brand. Your client informs you that the company intends to purchase multiple units of additional properties in several different states. Your head spins, full of questions. Will it be an asset sale or stock purchase? Will we retain the employees? Will ...
Read more

The Most Frequent Hospitality Claims

Property ClaimsThe most common types of hotel property claims are: general water damage, sprinkler water damage, hail, wind, and fire. These five causes account for two-thirds of hotel property claims. Fortunately, they are commonly covered by first party property insurance. First party property coverage is for damage to a policyholder’s own property, not for damage ...
Read more

Defending Cases In High Crime Areas

Depending on where you do business, crime and its associated consequences may simply be a cost of doing business. Unfortunately, savvy Plaintiff’s lawyers have carved out a niche practice by targeting businesses in high crime areas of our inner cities/Plaintiff-friendly venues. Frequently hotels, restaurants, bars, and the like find themselves as repeat targets in premises ...
Read more

Avoiding Workplace Violence: Tips And Best Practices For Hospitality Employers

Whether internal or external, violence in the workplace is an increasingly problematic issue that employers must learn to effectively minimize and prevent. This is even more important in the hospitality industry, given the constant interaction with the public, the high rate of turnover, and the added responsibility of dealing with available cash. It is imperative ...
Read more

Business Use of E-Scooters Presents New Challenges for Employers

Eric Lazzari needed to get across downtown for a meeting and decided to use an electric scooter, according to The Denver Post. He knew the law, and was properly operating the e-scooter on the sidewalk. While stopped at an intersection, an angry pedestrian approached him, told him e-scooters didn’t belong on the sidewalk, and smacked ...
Read more

Would You Like Fries And A Political Opinion With That? Regulating Employee Buttons, Pins, And Insignia In The Workplace

Burgers and buttons are making headlines again. Employees at Burgerville—a fast-food restaurant chain in the Pacific Northwest—recently took to wearing buttons to work and were sent home for the day. These buttons were not your typical “Hi! My Name Is ______” fare. Instead, 10 Burgerville employees in Oregon showed up to work wearing buttons which ...
Read more

Tips, Service Charges, and Automatic Gratuities Continue to Cause Problems for Employers

Hospitality employers nationwide continue to be hit with class action lawsuits alleging failure to properly pay/distribute tips, as well as failure to correctly characterize service charges and automatic gratuities.  These lawsuits have the potential to result in verdicts or settlement amounts more costly than virtually any other employment-related matter.  As a result, it is important to ...
Read more

Effectively Using Social Media At Trial

The process begins with obtaining information via requests for production, interrogatories, requests for admissions, depositions, etc. If used effectively, social media discovery can become an effective defense strategy that will withstand objections and scrutiny at trial. Social media evidence is important information to explore, especially considering most people (Plaintiffs) tend to have no filter when ...
Read more