Constantine v Imperial Hotels

Constantine v Imperial Hotels Ltd
Citation(s)	[1944] KB 693
Case opinions
Birkett J
Keywords
Racial discrimination, innkeeper's duty of hospitality

Constantine v Imperial Hotels Ltd [1944] KB 693 is an English contract law case, concerning the implied duty of an innkeeper to accept accommodation to a guest unless for just cause.

In 1943, Learie Constantine, a black Trinidadian professional cricketer for the West Indies, travelled to London to play for the Dominions team against England at Lord's. He and his family had a reservation to stay at the Imperial Hotel, London in Russell Square. He was reassured that he and his family were welcomed and would be treated with the utmost respect. When they arrived at the Imperial Hotel, they were informed they could stay one night and no more on account of complaints about their presence made by white American military servicemen who were also staying at the hotel.

They were treated as outcasts, and Constantine was outraged. He claimed the hotel was in breach of contract. There was no statute that expressly outlawed racial discrimination in Britain unless the common law provided a remedy.

Constantine claimed that the hotel breached the implied term, deriving from common-law principle that innkeepers must not refuse accommodation to guests without just cause.

Mr Justice Birkett held that a right of Constantine had been violated. It was accepted that an innkeeper had a duty to provide reasonable accommodation, and rejected that when the hotel offered to put Constantine at another lodge, this was fulfilling that duty. Furthermore, even though no pecuniary damage transpired, the violation of the right was in principle capable of conferring a remedy. He was awarded a small sum of five guineas in damages.

The first and main submission of the defendants was that the present action is an action on the case, that the gist of an action on the case is the damage actually suffered and proved, and here no damage was suffered and no special damage is either alleged or proved. The Statute of Westminster, 2, 1285, authorizing the writ "in consimili casu" produced the writs which were classified under the common denomination "writs of trespass on the case," and the actions on the case based on them included - certainly from very early times - the present form of action before me. This action was based on the common law and on what was termed the custom of the realm. The distinction between the writ of trespass and the writ of trespass on the case would appear to be that trespass was the appropriate remedy for the direct invasion of a right by force either actual or implied by law, and case was the remedy for a wrong in which one at least of those elements was lacking. In an ordinary trespass, in which a forcible act directly caused damage to the plaintiff's person or property, the connexion between the act and the damage was usually obvious, and the damage was presumed, but in case the damage arising from the wrongful act was the gist of the action. Indeed, it has been said by the late Sir William Holdsworth that the constant need to inquire whether the damage complained of was the proximate consequence of the act of the defendant familiarized the courts with the comparatively modern conception of the idea of negligence in law, but, although it was the general rule that damage was the gist of an action on the case and although without question the action before me is an action on the case, it is said by Sir Patrick Hastings that that rule is by no means an inflexible rule and that in certain cases, of which he says this is one, damage will be presumed and that Mr. Constantine can recover.

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