Annbar Associates v. American Express Co.

Annbar Associates (Annbar) (plaintiff) owned the Muehlebach Hotel in Kansas City. The hotel had contracts with American Express Company (AE) (defendant) to accept AE’s credit cards, as well as with American Express Reservations (AER), a phone-based hotel-reservation system. The hotel decided to terminate both contracts due to costs. Due to a miscommunication, AER’s reservation system continued to book reservations at the hotel, and the hotel’s staff continued to receive and accept the reservations, but the hotel did not continue to pay bills sent by AER for the reservation services. Eventually, AER notified the hotel that reservation services were being terminated. After that, people who called AER and asked for Muehlebach Hotel were told that rooms were not available or were sold out. Annbar sued AE and AER on the grounds that they had caused Annbar to lose business by telling potential patrons that the hotel did not have rooms available when it did. Annbar claimed that AE was jointly liable with AER because after the hotel canceled both services, AE set up the reservation computer system used by AER to show the Muehlebach Hotel as “Not Available” without making it clear whether the hotel was not available in their system or the did not currently have rooms available. At trial, Annbar produced no evidence that AE had acted maliciously or spitefully when it listed the hotel as “Not Available” in the computer system. In addition, the jury instructions did not instruct the jury to consider whether AE was aware that the “Not Available” statement was false. The jury found in favor of Annbar against both AE and AER. AE appealed.