Question
in this exercise, you'll need the facts in Matthias v. Accor Economy Lodging, 347 F.3d 672(7th Cir. 2003). Here they are, in the court's words:
in this exercise, you'll need the facts in Matthias v. Accor Economy Lodging, 347 F.3d 672(7th Cir. 2003). Here they are, in the court's words:
... The plaintiffs ... were guests [in the defendant's Motel 6] and were bitten by bedbugs, which are making a comeback in the U.S. as a consequence of more conservative use of pesticides. ... The jury ... awarded each plaintiff $186,000 in punitive damages though only $5,000 in compensatory damages....
... In 1998, EcoLab, the extermination service that the motel used, discovered bedbugs in several rooms in the motel and recommended that it be hired to spray every room, for which it would charge the
motel only $500; the motel refused.... By the spring of 2000, the motel's manager "started noticing that there were refunds being given by my desk clerks and reports coming back from the guests that there were ticks in the rooms and bugs in the rooms that were biting." She looked in some of the rooms and discovered bedbugs....
Further incidents of guests being bitten by insects and demanding and receiving refunds led the manager to recommend to her superior in the company that the motel be closed while every room was sprayed, but this was refused....
... By July, the motel's management was acknowledging to EcoLab that there was a major problem with bed bugs" and that all that was being done about it was "chasing them from room to room." ... Rooms that the motel had placed on "Do not rent, bugs in room" status nevertheless were rented.
It was in November that the plaintiffs checked into the motel. They were given Room 504, even though the motel had classified the room as "DO NOT RENT UNTIL TREATED," and it had not been treated....
Although bedbug bites are not as serious as the bites of some other insects, they are painful and unsightly. Motel 6 could not have rented any rooms at the prices it charged had it informed guests that the risk of being bitten by bedbugs was appreciable....
[Motel 6's] failure either to warn guests or to take effective measures to eliminate the bedbugs amounted to fraud and probably to battery as well (compare Campbell Iv. A.C. Equipment Services Corp., 242 Ill. App. 3d 707, 610 N.E.2d 745, 748-49, 182 Ill. Dec. 876 (Ill. App. 1993); see Restatement (Second) of Torts, supra, 18, comment c and e), as in the famous case of Garratt v. Dailey, 46 Wn.2d 197, 279 P.2d 1091, 1093 94 (1955), appeal after remand, 49 Wn.2d 499, 304 P.2d 681 (Wash. 1956), which held that the defendant would be guilty of battery if he knew with substantial certainty that when he moved a chair the plaintiff would try to sit down where the chair had been and would land on the floor instead. See also Massachusetts v. Stratton, 114 Mass. 303 (Mass. 1873). There was, in short, sufficient evidence of "willful and wanton conduct" within the meaning that the Illinois courts assign to the term to permit an award of punitive damages in this case.
Please briefly explain the following terms as they relate to a Court's rationale or explanation of their findings regarding an issue presented:
- Conclusory
- Substantiating
- Comprehensive
- Cryptic
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