Contracts in Hospitality Law

1. Henry Hesitant contacts the H-Town Hotel to book a block of rooms, the hotel manager

offers to book 10 hotel rooms for $89 per night. Explain the legal relationship between the

Henry and the H-Town Hotel in each of the following scenarios:

(a) Henry says the price is much too high and hangs up. He then calls back two days later

to take the rooms. In the interim, however, the hotel sold the rooms to a third party.

(b) Henry says he needs to consider it for a few days. The hotel manager says to please

contact him within three days with his decision.

(Hint: think in terms of the contract elements of offer and acceptance.)

2. The H-Town Hotel restaurant ordered 500 pounds of crab legs from a distributor, A-1

Seafood. When the order arrives, the chef returned them because he believed the order was

for king crab legs, but he received snow crab legs instead. A-1 Seafood sued H-Town Hotel

for the price of the crab legs.

(a) Suppose the contract was in writing and said simply crab legs @ $9.95 per pound –

500 pounds. Who would win?

(b) Would it make a difference if this were the third order between the parties?

(c) Would your answer to 2(a) be the same if the order said SC Crab Legs and, unknown

to the chef, the industry custom is to use “SC” to mean snow crab? Why?

(d) What if A-1 Seafood knew the chef wanted king crab, but hoped he would not know

“SC” stood for snow crab making it possible for A-1 to substitute the less expensive

goods? (Hint: think about conduct invalidating consent.)