Guestsbehaving badly

[Foreigner]

Report of hotel guest causing $500k damage, with no recollection:

Drunk Irishman flooded Melbourne city hotel

 

[JessicaTam]

Report of hotel guest causing $500k damage, with no recollection:

Drunk Irishman flooded Melbourne city hotel

$10,000 fine, and the hotel are suing him as well. An expensive night out indeed.

 

[TomVexille]

How stupid can you be?

 

[anat0l]

$10,000 fine, and the hotel are suing him as well. An expensive night out indeed.

What is the hotel going to get out of him? $500k? Damn unlikely, unless there's more to the man than meets the eye.

How stupid can you be?

As you can see, incredibly stupid is quite possible.

The only upshot is, at least according to the article, he actually acknowledges just how incredibly stupid he is / was.

 

[UP4014]

After 10 years I guess he will return to Ireland and avoid the bill. He says it wrecked his life, certainly wrecked his life in Australia.

I think I would return if I were him.

The hotel would have insurance, so likely the insurance company chasing him.

Matt

 

[Jack_OC]

After 10 years I guess he will return to Ireland and avoid the bill. He says it wrecked his life, certainly wrecked his life in Australia.

I think I would return if I were him.

The hotel would have insurance, so likely the insurance company chasing him.

Matt

He appears to have lived in Oz for his entire adult life (he's 28 now, and been here 10 yrs), and as you may know the jobs situation isn't great in Ireland, especially for anyone in the building industry. So TBH I'd be surprised if he leaves.

 

[froggerADL]

I think he was trying to do the right thing. He'd peed in the hallway and just wanted to flush! It was a big flush .

 

[Foreigner]

After 10 years I guess he will return to Ireland and avoid the bill. He says it wrecked his life, certainly wrecked his life in Australia.

I think I would return if I were him.

The hotel would have insurance, so likely the insurance company chasing him.

Matt

The insurance company may have required the hotel to pursue this lad first before settling a claim for damage.

 

[anat0l]

The insurance company may have required the hotel to pursue this lad first before settling a claim for damage.

Ah, good point.

So the hotel attempts to get whatever they can out of the lad, and hopefully the insurance company will assist with the balance.

That said, of course the hotel is never going to truly recover all of the costs due to the incident.

 

[JohnK]

I feel sorry for him.

Stupidity for some can be costly.

 

[Chimpy]

According to several Irish newspapers he has died. At this stage there seems to be very little in the way of details.

Tragedy strikes young Irishman one day after pleading guilty in court case in Australia - Independent.ie

Irish man dies day after Australian court case that 'ruined' his life | BreakingNews.ie

 

[amaroo]

According to several Irish newspapers he has died. At this stage there seems to be very little in the way of details.

Tragedy strikes young Irishman one day after pleading guilty in court case in Australia - Independent.ie

Irish man dies day after Australian court case that 'ruined' his life | BreakingNews.ie

Long term solution for a short term problem

 

[Jack_OC]

How dreadfully sad.

 

[Foreigner]

Yeah, dreadful.

 

[JohnK]

Suicide? Extremely sad.

And we made sure justice was done. Fantastic. Leave the real criminals alone because it is too difficult to prosecute them....

 

[Dino84]

Absolutely tragic story.

Scott.

 

[Shelf]

Suicide? Extremely sad.

And we made sure justice was done. Fantastic. Leave the real criminals alone because it is too difficult to prosecute them....

Suicide is always sad.

Should the hotel/insurer written off 500k worth of damage?

 

[Jack_OC]

Suicide is always sad.

Should the hotel/insurer written off 500k worth of damage?

I have sympathy for the hotel owners - I imagine they had no choice but to pursue the guy (even if there was no chance of recovering the costs), as otherwise it would probably have invalidated their insurance.

However, was a criminal prosecution really necessary? It sounds like he basically got drunk out of his mind and went sleep walking. And while what he did caused a huge amount of damage, by all accounts there was no violence and even the judge said he didn't think there was any malice. So perhaps the civil case to recover whatever they could financially would have been sufficient?

In any case, it's hard to know if it was the conviction per se that caused him to take his life, but criminal convictions can have detrimental effects for years to come, when it comes to getting jobs, visas to certain countries and so on. I suspect the worldwide media coverage (this was front page news in his native Ireland) and widespread mockery via social media may have had more to do with it. On the other hand, I'm not sure any of that would have happened if it were not for the criminal conviction - I certainly never heard anything about this story until I read the reports after he was convicted, and it was of course just a day after his conviction that he was found dead. The incident itself, the initiation of legal action against him by the hotel and his partner leaving him all happened quite a while previously, so it does seem it was the criminal conviction and/or subsequent coverage that pushed him over the edge.

 

[Shelf]

I assume a general deterrence would have been the reason he was prosecuted.

At the end of the day the story ends sadly.

 

[JohnK]

Suicide is always sad.

Should the hotel/insurer written off 500k worth of damage?

It wasn't necessary for criminal proceedings. There was no criminal intent.

And insurers take a risk anyway. What would have happened to that $500,000 bill if it wasn't clear who/what caused the damage?