Alex Trelinski
A VALENCIA hotel has been ordered to pay almost one million US dollars in compensation to the rapper Daddy Yankee after he was robbed of his jewellery in August 2018.
The singer’s lawyer appealed to the Valencia Provincial Court after an earlier ruling from a lower court exonerated the Melia Valencia Hotel from making any payment.
Daddy Yankee- best known for his international hit Despacito- was performing at the Latin Fest Festival in Gandia but along with his entourage they stayed over 70 kilometres away in Valencia.
The court ruling said Daddy Yankee and his wife stayed in a room at the Melia Valencia and that the singer, ‘as part of his public and artistic image, travels with a significant amount of jewellery that complements his appearance during concerts, which he keeps in a room safe that the hotel makes available to its guests’.
The multiple Latin Grammy award winning star came with two watches, three chains, a cross, four bracelets, three rings and a pair of diamond earrings.
Just after 5.00am on August 6, an unknown person claiming to be Daddy Yankee appeared at the reception desk.
He asked for duplicates of room key cards, fully aware that the performer and his team were not at the hotel.
Staff gave him the cards without any kind of identity check and even got them to open the safe with all of the jewellery inside, which he took along with an unspecified amount of money.
The culprit has never been caught.
A lower court threw out Daddy Yankee’s claim on the basis that he could not prove what items were stolen.
The Provincial Court referred to sections 1783 and 1784 of the Civil Code dating back to the 19th century which states that ‘effects brought by travellers to inns are considered as necessary deposits and that innkeepers are liable for them so long as they are made aware in advance’.
The bench said that a modern four-star hotel with security measures falls into the ‘inn’ category and was therefore liable for Daddy Yankee’s losses.
He was awarded $908,950 but the Melia hotel group can make an appeal before the Valencian Supreme Court.
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