The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could have a considerable effect on how hotels, including hotels operated by casinos, treat the privacy of the guests—especially whether records heretofore treated as private are available for inspection by the police.
The case under review is City of Los Angeles v. Patel, brought by the Lodging Association against the city for a municipal code that the association claims violates the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures.
The law requires that hotels maintain guest registries that are available for inspection by the police, any police who requests to see them. The registry must include a guest’s name and address, time of arrival and departure and room number. Such records must be kept for 90 days.
The part of the law being challenged says that the police are entitled to examine the records without needed a search warrant.
The court will rule on whether this requirement violates the Fourth Amendment and whether the association may then challenge it in a lower court. One key question will be whether the statute actually constitutes a “search” or “seizure” under the constitution.
While the court has ruled that the owner of a vehicle can reasonably expect to have privacy of his possessions, the same does not hold for a passenger of that vehicle.
So, does a temporary habitation of a hotel room also hold a transitory nature where the constitution is concerned? This is of concern to the case because the Supremes have already previously held that persons who share information with a third party have no expectation that the information will remain private.
The case may be decided on the issue of whether submitting to such a search violates the rights of the innkeeper, who would have an interest in keeping the records of its patrons confidential.
