In July, Mr. Zhan's family stayed at the Sheraton Chongming Youyou Hotel in Shanghai, where Mr. Zhan shared a parent-child room with his lover and two-year-old child. According to Mr. Zhan's account, on the night of check-in, the child was crushed by the glass of a table in the hotel, and his nose was bleeding. Today, after the stitches, the child still has a scar on his face. Mr. Zhan questioned the safety of the table at the hotel.
On July 30, the relevant person in charge of the hotel told the Red Star News reporter that the hotel and the child's family have not yet been able to reach an agreement on a compensation plan for this incident. Each room in the hotel has this table, the table has a factory certificate and other qualifications, and the family room adopts the same safety standards as other rooms to ensure the safety of guests.
The reporter learned from the Chongming District Bureau of Culture and Tourism that it has received feedback on complaints related to the incident and is being processed.
Photo courtesy of the interviewee at the scene of the incident
Parents of injured children:
The table and glass are not fixed, and there are no safety tips on site
On July 26, Mr. Zhan told the Red Star News reporter that the family usually lives in Shanghai. On July 6, a family of five went to Chongming for a vacation, and Mr. Zhan booked two rooms at the Sheraton Hotel in Chongming that night on the official platform of Marriott, among which he and his lover and two-year-old child stayed in a parent-child family room. The call records provided by him show that he received a call from the hotel's front desk at about 8 a.m. that day. He recalls that he took the initiative to inform the hotel that there would be a two-year-old child staying.
According to Mr. Zhan's description, that night, his wife was in the bathroom, while he was sitting on the sofa, and the child walked from his side to the bedside, and when he was about 1 meter away, the child reached out and gently touched the edge of a table. Subsequently, the table toppled and pressed against the child, and a round piece of glass covering the table fell off and ran over the child's face, causing the child to bleed from the face. After asking the hotel for help, the family took the child to the doctor.
Mr. Zhan pre-ordered the order provided by the interviewee
A photograph of the scene provided by Mr. Zhan showed blood on the child's face and clothes, and the table and glass next to him had fallen to the ground. He said that at the time of the incident, there were no items on the table, there were no safety tips around the table, and the child was about the same height as the table. According to the relevant hospital certificate provided by him, the doctor found that the child had a wound about 2 cm long at the base of his nose, which was diagnosed as a nasal injury and was debrided and sutured. There was no obvious misalignment fracture of the nasal bone, and the soft tissue at the tip of the nose was slightly swollen. A recent photograph of the child he provided showed that the child still had suture scars on his face.
Regarding the table and glass that crushed the child, Mr. Zhan raised questions about the safety. The photographs he provided show that the table is supported by three legs, the top is round, and the table is covered with a round glass of the same size. According to the photos and videos he provided, he had measured the weight of the table and the glass to be about 20 kilograms. According to his experiments, when he pulled the edge of the table with his hand, the table fell over and the glass slipped out to one side.
According to the pictures provided by Mr. Zhan, the compensation plan proposed by the hotel includes: compensation of 3,856.74 yuan, waiver of one night for each of the two rooms for the night, a total of 905 yuan, refund of relevant points, and additional compensation of 50,000 Marriott Bonvoy points. Mr. Zhan said that the current cumulative expenditure on medical expenses and transportation to and from the hospital has exceeded 5,000 yuan, and the hotel has not made a clear commitment to the cost of the child's follow-up scar removal surgery, and he also hopes that the hotel can make a clear apology and rectify the relevant hidden dangers.
Hotel:
The table has a factory certificate, etc., and there is no potential safety hazard in normal use
On July 30, the relevant person in charge of the Sheraton Hotel in Chongming, Shanghai, told the Red Star News reporter that on the night of the incident, the hotel learned of the incident through feedback from the family, and because the incident occurred in the room, the hotel could not learn the specific process of the incident. After the incident, the hotel was concerned about the treatment and recovery of the children, and the management had expressed condolences to the injured children and communicated with the families many times, but no compensation plan had been agreed upon so far. The specific compensation plan involves the privacy of the family, and it is inconvenient for the hotel to disclose it.
Regarding the table problem reported by Mr. Zhan, the person in charge said that in the hotel, every house has this table, and the hotel has regular maintenance, inspection and maintenance of the table. After the incident, the hotel's director of engineering has completed a safety check of the three-legged round table in each room to confirm that there is no safety hazard to the guests staying in the room, including children, under normal use.
The same three-legged round table at the hotel involved
The reporter further asked, how to confirm that there are no potential safety hazards and whether there are relevant standards? The person in charge said that the table has qualifications such as factory certificates. The reporter asked for specific manufacturer information, but the person in charge did not provide it.
The person in charge said that the parent-child room is decorated with children's toys and other decorations, and is equipped with some children's supplies, and the parent-child room has the same safety standards as other rooms.
On July 26, the reporter called the customer service hotline of the Marriott Group, to which the hotel belongs, as a customer, and asked whether the group had unified requirements for parent-child rooms. The customer service confirmed to the reporter that there is no unified standard for parent-child rooms for the time being, and the parent-child rooms of each hotel are different. If there are safety concerns, guests can make notes at check-in.
On the same day, the reporter learned from the Chongming District Bureau of Culture and Tourism that it had received feedback on complaints related to the incident and was currently being processed.
Lawyers call for:
Pay attention to the safety of parent-child rooms and standardize the parent-child room operation market
Qu Changshuai, director of Sichuan Hualv Law Firm and lawyer of the Culture, Tourism and Sports Committee of Chengdu Lawyers Association, analyzed that hotels, as operators, have legal safety and security obligations to consumers. In this case, "because the guest is staying in a parent-child room, then there is a situation where minors are staying in the room, and in this case, if the items placed in the hotel have certain safety hazards, the hotel should bear certain liability for compensation." "The legal obligation of guardians to take care of minors is that if parents fail to take good care of their children due to their own negligence, they should also bear certain responsibilities.
According to Qu Changshuai's analysis, when it comes to the situation of minors staying in, relevant facilities and equipment that are tempting and dangerous for minors should be carefully arranged, and corresponding safety measures should be taken for some dangerous situations that may arise when minors move in, such as adding anti-collision pads and safety sockets in the room.
Qu Changshuai mentioned that for parent-child rooms and parent-child hotels, only the China Hotel Association will issue the "Parent-Child Hotel Service Evaluation Guide" in 2022, and relevant industry associations need to pay more attention to the safety of parent-child rooms and introduce more safety standards to standardize the parent-child room operation market and protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.
Zhang Yuxia, a senior partner of Shanghai Shenhao Law Firm and a public interest lawyer of the Shanghai Municipal Consumer Rights Protection Commission, believes that the parents' claim that the table accidentally toppled when touched may be a problem with the stability of the table, and it is necessary to identify whether it meets the standard of "Stability of Chairs and Stools in the Mechanical Performance Test of Furniture". If the standards are not met, the hotel shall bear certain liability for compensation, and according to Article 1202 of the Civil Code, the producer shall also bear tort liability. In addition, according to the "General Technical Conditions for Children's Furniture", children's furniture products should not use glass parts except in areas with a height of more than 1600 mm from the ground or children's standing surface, and the three-legged round table does not meet the safety standards for children's furniture. "However, the parent-child room is used by parents and children together, and it is impossible to use all children's furniture, and the child's injury this time was not scratched by the glass, and there is no causal relationship with the glass material, so the hotel does not need to be responsible for the glass problem alone."
Zhang Yuxia also said that 2-year-old children need to be taken care of by their parents at all times, and parents, as guardians, also have to bear certain responsibilities.
Red Star News reporter Chen Xinyi
Edited by Guo Zhuang
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