A hotel in Sydney has been ordered to refund a woman from Membertou nearly $1,000 after she picked up the tab for a native leader.

Laurianne Stevens went to the Delta Sydney's Crown and Moose Bar and Restaurant last May with a group of friends.

While there, she ran into Morley Googoo — the former chief of the Waycobah First Nation and the current regional chief of the Assembly of First Nations — who was out drinking with friends.

Googoo ended up running a bill of $862.86 — almost $600 of that was for alcohol.

"Of the $652.42 of the bill before taxes, only $59.95 was for food, leaving $595.47 of accumulated charges for alcohol," adjudicator Ralph Ripley wrote in a decision released Tuesday.

"The bill also included a 20 per cent gratuity, which equals the sum of $112.58, for a total bill of $862.86."

According to court documents, Googoo had asked the bar to run a tab for him, but bar staff had not gotten a credit card authorization from him.

By the time the bar closed at 1 a.m., the court heard that Googoo had "reached a state of high intoxication."

Court was also told that Jonathan Timmons, a front desk clerk at the Delta Sydney, "candidly admitted that Mr. Googoo, when he saw him at the end of the night, was so intoxicated that he vomited on the lobby floor."

Googoo tried to get a room for the night but Timmons wouldn't give him one because he didn't have a credit card.

Stevens and her friends then confronted Googoo about his wish to drive home to Waycobah, which would have taken about an hour and a half from the hotel.

She offered to secure a room for Googoo on her credit card, but made it clear she did not want to be charged for any incidentals to the room she had paid for.

Then, Stevens received a charge on her MasterCard of $984.82, most of which she had not authorized. She took Fortis Properties Corp., which owns the hotel, to small claims court and won.

"It was left to the claimant as the only one that appeared sufficiently concerned about the danger to Mr. Googoo and the driving public to make arrangements for Mr. Googoo, so that he would not drive (which in law also limited the bar's potential liability from potential civil actions)," Ripley wrote.

"After that good act, to then charge the claimant's credit card account for Mr. Googoo's bar bill, is abhorrent."

Stevens was awarded $968.69, which covers Googoo's bar charges, interest and the cost of filing her claim.