By Associated Press, 04/17/01

WOODSTOCK, Vt. -- Last April, five Massachusetts couples decided to spend a spring weekend in Vermont with other members of their investment club, and booked rooms at the Woodstock Inn. When they got there, they learned the inn was overbooked and that three of the couples would have to go to a nearby bed-and-breakfast.

Now four of the couples are suing the inn.

Seeking damages "substantially in excess of $25,000," the couples asked the Suffolk County (Mass.) Superior Court to decree a practice that the hospitality industry calls standard operating procedure an illegal breach of contract.

The change ruined "the highlight of our year's activity," said Jay Lander, a Wayland, Mass., lawyer who says he was among those rerouted by the inn to a nearby B&B. Lander is part of an investment club that had reserved the rooms the previous fall, and early arriving members got their rooms without a problem, according to the lawsuit.

The last five couples got in later that Friday, and were told that three would have to go to the B&B because the inn had overbooked the hotel.

The investment club is a long-standing affair, and its annual weekend away combines a club meeting with socializing by 10 couples who are good friends, said Lander.

"The importance of it was the camaraderie," he said.

Resident Manager Tom List told the Valley News that the inn went all out to make it up to the couples.

"In our hearts, we know we did well," said List, adding that the overbooking was inadvertent.

The inn arranged for all five to stay their two nights in Woodstock for free -- including the two couples who got to stay at the inn. It treated them to one night of dinners, worth $500, he said.

List said the Woodstock Inn assigns a specific room to customers when they reserve a room. A few weeks before the weekend in question, he said, the inn realized it was overbooked, which meant either selecting patrons to notify in advance that they might have to be bounced, or waiting to see if someone canceled. The inn chose the latter, and no one canceled, List said.

As Lander tells it, the couples, tired after their drive up to Vermont, "had the indignity . . . of having to draw straws" in the lobby of the inn to see who would stay and who would go.

"Here you have good friends having to go through that anguish of choosing who's going to have the room and who isn't," he said. At the B&B, he said, "My wife and I wound up staying in the attic of this house. We had to bring our bags up this narrow staircase to the attic," where he said the slanted ceilings were too low for him to stand up.

List said the inn's compensation exceeded that which credit card companies ask hotels to extend in the event of overbooking.

The suit contends that the bounced club members were the victims of an illegal act that has victimized previous patrons of the inn.

Not so, said List.

"It's the first time (overbooking has) happened...since I've been here, which is five years," he said.