Hotel guest sues after being charged 75 cents for USA Today
Hilton guest makes federal case of 75-cent paper
Henry K. Lee, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
A guest at a Hilton hotel in Santa Rosa who was upset that he was billed 75 cents for a newspaper he assumed was free has filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the hotel chain, saying he was deceived by a scheme that also hurts the environment.
Rodney Harmon, 55, of Sacramento said he visited the Hilton Garden Inn Sonoma County Airport on March 28 and saw a copy of USA Today outside his door.
"He did not request a newspaper and assumed it had been placed there by hotel staff," said the suit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Harmon didn't realize until later that a 75-cent charge for the paper had been added to his bill.
Harmon accused Hilton of deliberately hiding the newspaper charge by describing the fee in an "extremely small font which is difficult to notice or read" on the sleeve of the room card.
The suit noted that newspaper readership and circulation has drastically declined over the past several decades and that most hotel guests probably aren't reading the paper anyway. The wasted papers are an "offensive waste of precious resources and energy," said the suit, which also said that "deforestation caused by paper production is a matter of concern and worry in this state, country and worldwide."
"Certainly if people who don't want newspapers are getting newspapers and then not using them, that is waste that we don't need," Kirk Wolden, an attorney representing Harmon, said Friday,
"The alleged consumer injury is substantial, causing millions of guests at defendant's hotels to unwittingly part with money for a newspaper they did not request and reasonably believed was provided to them without charge," the suit says.
Hilton officials declined comment, citing the pending litigation.
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