Facts
- A hotel owned and operated a modern, indoor, multi-story parking garage connected to its downtown Nashville hotel.
- The garage had a single entrance and a single exit; entry was controlled by a ticket machine and barrier gate, and exit was controlled by an attendant in a booth positioned to observe the entrance/exit.
- The garage was available to hotel guests and the general public for a fee.
- A patron’s husband drove the patron’s new 1981 automobile into the garage, took an automatically dispensed ticket, parked on an upper level, locked the car, kept the ignition key, and left the garage.
- Several hours later, he returned and discovered the car missing; it was never recovered.
- The parking ticket contained printed terms stating charges were for parking space only, instructing drivers to lock vehicles, and disclaiming responsibility for loss including theft.
- The patron sued the hotel, alleging liability for the stolen vehicle.
- The trial court and intermediate appellate court found a bailment and applied a statutory presumption of negligence upon nondelivery of the vehicle.
Issues
- Whether a bailment for hire arises when a customer self-parks, locks a vehicle, and retains the key in an attended, controlled-access commercial parking garage.
- Whether nondelivery of the vehicle triggers a statutory presumption of negligence against the garage operator as bailee.
- Whether printed disclaimers on a parking ticket negate bailment liability or the statutory presumption under these circumstances.
Decision
- The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed judgment for the plaintiff.
- The court held that a bailment for hire was created when the vehicle was parked in the garage.
- Because the vehicle was not returned, the plaintiff was entitled to the statutory presumption of negligence against the bailee.
- The court declined to replace traditional bailment analysis with an alternative, non-bailment burden-shifting approach used in some jurisdictions.
- A dissent would have found no bailment in a self-park, keep-your-keys arrangement and would have applied ordinary negligence principles without the bailment presumption.
Legal Principles
- A bailment for hire may be found in a commercial “park-and-lock” garage when the operator’s design and operation demonstrate practical control over vehicle ingress and egress, even if the customer parks the vehicle and retains the keys.
- In a bailment, proof of delivery and subsequent nondelivery supports a statutory presumption that the bailee was negligent; the bailee bears the burden to rebut that presumption.
- Boilerplate ticket language disclaiming responsibility does not automatically defeat a bailment relationship or the statutory presumption, particularly where the arrangement and the operator’s control indicate custody and responsibility.
Conclusion
The court treated a controlled-access, attended hotel garage as a bailment relationship despite self-parking and key retention, and held that the unexplained failure to return the stolen vehicle invoked Tennessee’s statutory presumption of bailee negligence.