By Denis Cyr
As the Coronavirus continues to keep New Yorkers sequestered at home, all travel plans for the upcoming Passover holiday have cancelled. It now appears that an ugly legal dispute has arisen between a Brooklyn school and a Miami Beach hotel.
Click to see the full complaint filed
According to published reports, Brooklyn’s Magen David Yeshiva had planned to spend their Passover holiday at the iconic Eden Roc hotel in South Beach, however the deadly pandemic that has been ravaging the world has prevented New Yorkers from leaving home.
The private school, established in 1946 and rooted in Sephardic Jewish tradition, services students from pre-kindergarten through the 12th grade. As with schools across the nation, the viral outbreak has forced the Brooklyn campus to shutter and move classes online, as was reported by the Miami Herald.
Working with the tour operator, Elegant Travel, the school first booked a Passover trip in 2018, and followed up with another in 2019. Then, it signed a three-year contract to keep the event at the hotel.
Because of rapid spread of the Coronavirus, Magen David had no other option but to cancel the trip. Eden Roc, however is refusing to issue a refund to the school for its down payment of $2.3 million. The school had rented 621 rooms at the iconic hotel for 10 nights for their 1200 guests to enjoy all of the amenities that the hotel provided.
According to the breach of contract lawsuit filed by Magen David’s attorney in Miami-Dade circuit court, the school has cited a passage in the contract that would allow for a cancellation in the event of a “disease outbreak.”
The NY Post reported that on March 9, the school told the hotel that many of the families who were traveling with the elderly wouldn’t be able to attend because of the “escalating problems presented by COVID-19,” the court documents say. The Miami Herald reported that after Magen David made this announcement, the hotel’s vice president of sales, Sergio Rivera, responded by “demanding” that Magen David pony up an additional $1.2 million toward the rest of the cost of renting out the hotel.
An attorney representing the hotel “did not recognize or acknowledge the mushrooming COVID-19 catastrophe,” the court filings declare.
On March 18th, the school (working with the tour operator Elegant Travel) formally cancelled the trip. Within days, New York’s governor issued a statewide “shelter-in-place” order that forbade travel and Miami Beach ordered hotels to cancel existing reservations, according to the Miami Herald report.
At about the same time, the Eden Roc’s summarily rejected the notion that disease outbreak was a legitimate or credible reason for the trip to be canceled and according to the court filings, said that the Eden Roc will ‘retain the entirety” of the school’s deposit.
Magen David’s attorney, Daniel Blonsky of the Miami law firm, Coffey Burlington, told the Jewish Voice that the contract agreed upon by Magen David, Elegant Travel and the Eden Roc includes a provision entitled “Force Majeure” which grants legal permission for the school to cancel the contract for a number of reasons, including but not limited to the outbreak of disease. The lawsuit reveals that the other matters include “acts of G-d, natural disasters, union strike, terrorist attacks in the city in which the hotel is located, or declared war on the United States.”
Moreover it includes the following: “In the event that the Force Majeure event causes Group (Magen David) to cancel the Event, all monies paid to the Hotel shall be returned to Group.”
The hotel is insisting the event be rescheduled or “proceed as scheduled with whomever was foolhardy enough to travel from New York to Miami Beach for the Passover 2020 event,” according Mr. Blonsky.
The suit also said that the hotel showed an “utter and contemptuous disregard of the health and safety” of attendees and locals due to the inherent dangers of the virus. Mr. Blonsky added that the school hoped to avoid a lawsuit and reach a business resolution, but that it was forced to file suit when the Eden Roc refused to recognize what was happening with the pandemic and claimed that the entire deposit was forfeited when the Force Majeure provision was invoked.
The Jewish Voice has made repeated attempts to contact the Eden Roc for comments on this case but calls have not been returned by Julie Cabaleri of the public relations department or general manager Michael Chin.
According to an unnamed source familiar with the case, the obstinacy on the part of the Eden Roc is emanating from the ownership, which is based in Mexico. The source also revealed that the Eden Roc is an asset of Key International (key-international.com) and is managed by brothers Inigo and Diego Ardid, who are co-presidents. Said the source, “Diego seems to be the one responsible for the Eden Roc. They’re originally from Spain.”
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