Inn is the legal designation of a house or hotel where lodging and refreshment are provided for travellers generally. Public-houses, &c. are not properly described as inns unless some rooms are set apart for guests to lodge in. An inn may be set up without a license; but if excisable liquors are sold the innkeeper must take out a license; and even temperance hotels are made subject to police inspection, to prevent evasion of the law.
An innkeeper is bound to open his house to travellers generally; he may not refuse refreshment or lodging to any person who is able and willing to pay, unless such person is drunk or disorderly, or tainted with infectious disease. He is, of course, bound only to give such accommodation as he has. If the traveller has a horse and luggage the innkeeper is bound to receive them if he has accommodation, provided the traveller himself intends to lodge there as a guest. But the traveller is not entitled to select whatever room he pleases, and if he will not accept such reasonable accommodation as is offered, the innkeeper may order him to leave the house. An innkeeper has a lien or right to detain the horse, carriage, or goods of his guest for that part of the reckoning applicable to each respectively, and this lien he acquires even if the horse, &c. be not the property of the guest. He has no right to detain the person of his guest.
By the Roman law an innkeeper was bound to restore goods entrusted to him by his guests, unless they were lost by some damnum fatale, or inevitable misfortune; this was the effect of a clause in the edict beginning Nautæ, caupones, stabularii. The same rule was adopted by the English common law. Hence, if a guest was robbed of his goods at an inn the innkeeper was liable, unless the guest had taken upon himself the care of his own property, or the loss was due to the default or negligence of the guest himself, his servant, or companion; and the landlord was not permitted to escape liability by putting up a notice that he would not be answerable for losses. But the Innkeepers Act, 1863, provides that an innkeeper shall not be liable to make good the loss of any goods, &c. (not being a horse or carriage) to a greater amount than £30, unless the loss has been occasioned by his own wilful default, or the property has been deposited with him for safe custody. A copy of the first section of the act must be exhibited in the hall or entrance to the inn. The liability of innkeepers in respect of goods belonging to their guests extends to all keepers of public-houses, &c., but not to persons who let lodgings. The keeper of a boarding-house or lodging-house is free from liability if he exercises ordinary care—i.e. such care as he takes of his own goods. The Innkeepers Act of 1878 permits a landlord (after giving notice as required by the act) to sell the property of a guest who has left without paying. In Scotland the Roman rule of law as to innkeepers' liability has been adopted, and the law is substantially the same as in England, except that no indictment would lie against an innkeeper for refusing a guest. See further, as to the licenses required by innkeepers, the articles LICENSING LAWS and LIQUOR LAWS.