The robbery and theft insurance recovery case of AAA insurance company v. BBB hotel
The details of the case:
Around 17:00 on December 11th,2006, Du drove his Changan SC6371 car, numbered “川AMS657”, to consume in the BBB hotel. Du delivered his car to the security guard working for the parking lot which under the ownership of the BBB hotel for safekeeping, and where the security guard gave a parking card to Du. About 01:00 on the next morning, Du found that his car had been stolen when he went to fetch his car after consumption and reported a theft case to the Baiguolin local police station under the public security sub-bureau of Jinniu district thereupon. On December sixth, Du made an announcement of theft of a car in a local newspaper. Afterwards, the AAA insurance company, in which Du made a robbery and theft insurance for his car, made a compensation for the loss of Du in accordance with the terms of the insurance contract. After that, the AAA insurance company held that the BBB hotel’s failing to perform the obligations of a contract of safekeeping leaded to the theft of the car, so the AAA insurance, in the name of Du, conducted a suit against the BBB hotel with a claim of compensation for a loss of RMB 47,485 YUAN.
The court of first instance held:
To establish a safekeeping contract between the park lot and the leaver requires all of the following three necessary conditions: (1)a writing safekeeping contract, in which a clear relationship of rights and obligations has been made, has been concluded between the two parties;(2)a deposit receipt (parking card) has been given from the safekeeping lot to the leaver;(3)the safekeeping lot has delivered a invoice to the leaver.
In such case, there is no safekeeping contract between the two parties and the parking lot charged no fees from the leaver, so what the parking lot conducted are merely safekeeping measures and no relationship of safekeeping contract was established between the two parties. At last the court rejected the plaintiff’s claim.