Bill Brewer’s Landmark Hotel Management Law Case: Woolley v. Embassy Suites
Bill represented Robert E. Woolley and Charles Sweeney, managing general partners of partnerships that owned 22 Embassy Suites-franchised hotels, in a dispute with Embassy Suites concerning the termination of hotel management agreements. After the owners sought to terminate the agreements based on alleged contractual violations, Embassy Suites sought arbitration and an injunction preventing the owners from removing the company as manager while the arbitration proceeded.
The California Court of Appeal reversed the lower court’s injunction, holding that a hotel management agreement creates an agency relationship in which an owner generally retains the power to revoke the manager’s authority, even when the termination may constitute a breach of contract and result in a claim for damages.
The decision became an important precedent in hospitality law, establishing a distinction between a manager’s contractual right to damages and its ability to maintain operational control of an owner’s property, while also recognizing limits on injunctive relief in disputes subject to arbitration.
Bill’s hospitality litigation experience also includes his defense of Starwood in Blue Tree Hotels v. Starwood Hotels & Resorts.