Definition
A check room is a facility, typically operated by a business, hotel, theater, transportation terminal, or similar establishment, where patrons deposit personal property — luggage, coats, parcels, or other items — for temporary safekeeping in exchange for a claim check or token. The operator of the check room receives the deposited property and assumes responsibility for its return to the bearer of the matching claim ticket.
The legal significance of the check room lies in the bailment relationship it creates. When a patron surrenders property to a check room attendant and receives a claim check, a bailment for mutual benefit ordinarily arises: the patron (bailor) entrusts the property; the establishment (bailee) accepts custody and undertakes to return it. This triggers duties of reasonable care, and the establishment may face liability for loss or damage resulting from negligence.
The claim check itself — the physical token issued in exchange for deposited property — is the instrument that identifies the bailor's right to reclaim. Some jurisdictions treat the check room claim check as a document of title or a form of negotiable receipt for purposes of property return; others treat it merely as a receipt with no independent transferable value.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A room or counter where hats, coats, luggage, or other items may be left temporarily, usually in exchange for a claim ticket.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not separately defined as a legal term; "check" in this context referred to the counterfoil or stub of a ticket used to identify and reclaim deposited goods.
The common and legal meanings here are closely aligned in describing the physical facility. The legal gap is in the relationship the check room creates: common usage treats it as a convenience service, while law treats it as a bailment with attendant duties of care, potential liability, and — depending on jurisdiction — limitations on that liability through posted notices or printed disclaimers on the claim check itself. The piece of paper handed back to the patron is not merely a receipt; it is a legal instrument whose terms may affect the operator's liability exposure.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering "check room" in historical legal sources should be aware of two layers of meaning that can blur in older texts:
First, Bouvier's entry points toward "check" as a bookkeeping or financial stub — the counterfoil of a bank check or similar instrument — not the cloak-room deposit context. This reflects a period when "check room" terminology was less standardized, and the word "check" in legal literature more commonly signaled financial instruments and their stubs than baggage deposit facilities. Researchers working with 19th-century commercial law materials should not assume that a reference to a "check room" in that era carries the modern hospitality or transportation-industry meaning.
Second, Bouvier's cross-reference to "WAREHOUSE" is the structural clue that matters: the law governing check rooms historically developed in close relationship to warehouse receipt law, storage law, and the general law of bailment. A researcher investigating check room liability should follow that thread into warehouse and bailment doctrine rather than treating the check room as a freestanding category.
In the modern corpus, check room disputes arise most often in tort and contract contexts: negligence claims for lost or stolen property, contract claims based on limitation-of-liability language printed on claim checks, and consumer protection questions about whether posted disclaimers are enforceable. The claim check as a legal instrument also surfaces in property and commercial law when questions arise about who has the right to claim deposited goods — particularly where the check has been transferred or lost.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary does not provide a freestanding entry for "check room" as a bailment facility. Its relevant language appears in the context of bank checks and their stubs: Bouvier describes what merchants called a "stump, or stubb" — the portion of a check retained after the instrument is torn off — noting that memoranda of date, payee, and amount recorded there, combined with sworn testimony, constitute evidence of the recorded facts. This definition is entirely in the financial instruments register and has no direct connection to the cloak-room or baggage-deposit sense.
The second Bouvier fragment — "See WAREHOUSE" — is the more important navigational signal. It suggests that compilers working with Bouvier recognized that temporary custody of goods, including the check room context, was governed by the warehouse and storage framework rather than any distinct check room doctrine.
The historical dictionaries are therefore of limited direct value for the bailment/hospitality sense of check room. They are more useful for tracing the etymology and legal treatment of the claim check as a paper instrument, and for understanding that warehouse law was the doctrinal home for these disputes in the formative period.
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Jurisdictional Note
State statutes in several jurisdictions limit the liability of hotels, common carriers, and entertainment venues for property deposited in check rooms, often conditioning any limitation on conspicuous posting of the limitation or its appearance on the claim check. Researchers should identify the applicable state statute before assuming general bailment liability rules govern; the statutory framework may substantially reduce or cap recovery.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See WAREHOUSE (The Law Mind Contracts & Commercial Law Encyclopedia) — the foundational doctrinal home for temporary custody, storage, and the receipt instruments that govern property reclamation.
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