We drove to California last week. On the first day, we drove all the way from Bellevue to a small town on the California coast. So it was quite late when we arived there. Two motels we checked had no room left. The third one offered us $109.99 + tax, after AAA discount, for a room with two beds. We had to take it reluctantly, as we had never paid such price for a motel room. I was expecting something in the $50 to $60 range,

Once in the room, I looked around to see what is so special about this expensive motel room and found a notice in the back of the door. It is a printed notice about room rates, rules and regulations, and several sections from laws of California regarding hotels.

Laws of California

Room Rate Statute

California Civil Code Section 1863: Every keeper of a hotel, inn, boading-house or lodginhhouse, shall post in a conspicuous place in the office or public room, and in every bedroom of said hotel, boarding house, Inn or lodginghouse, a printed copy of this section, and a statement of rate or change of rates by the day for lodging. No charge or sum shall be collected or received for any greater sum than specified in subdivision For any violation of this subvision, the offender shall forfeit to the injured party one hundred dollars ($100) or three times the amount of the sum charged in excess of what he is entitled to, whichever is greater. ...

The rate for the room was listed as $105 for 3 persons, so they over-charged us $4.99. But if you read the printed California law carefully as a software engineer, the innkeeper owe me max(100, 3 * (109.99 - 105)) = 100.

The next morning, I took the notice to the office and walked away with a 100 dollar bill, after explaining the defect I found to them for two minutes.