SANTA ANA, CA — After a Los Angeles Superior Court Judge denied motions filed by Holiday Inn Express to strike a plea of punitive damages from the complaint of a young woman raped in one of their hotels, plaintiff’s counsel Callahan & Blaine said it believes her case has the potential to result in comparable damages to the recent Erin Andrews case.
“The facts of the case filed by Callahan & Blaine against Holiday Inn Express are even more outrageous than the Andrews matter,” said Dan Callahan of Callahan & Blaine. “Given the ruling of the Court allowing the Plaintiff to proceed with a plea of punitive damages, the case could result in a record settlement or judgment.”
In the recent case involving another major hotel chain, the Associated Press reported that Fox News sportscaster Erin Andrews obtained a $55 million jury verdict for being surreptitiously filmed in the nude at a hotel by another guest. The judgment did not include punitive damages, and was comprised solely of general damages.
The Plaintiff, who filed her complaint through her counsel, Sarah Serpa and Dan Callahan of Callahan & Blaine, alleges that the desk clerk, untrained and unsupervised, provided a key to a male impersonating the Plaintiff’s boyfriend, with whom Plaintiff was sharing a room. According to the complaint, the desk clerk did not ask for any identification from the imposter, who used the key to enter Plaintiff’s hotel room and rape her.
The complaint also notes that only minutes before the desk clerk provided the imposter with a key without asking for his identification, the imposter had approached the clerk, was clearly intoxicated, and had asked the clerk for sexual favors in exchange for $100.
The Los Angeles Superior Court Judge found that the conduct of Holiday Inn Express and its owners was sufficiently egregious to warrant a plea for punitive damages. The hearing took place on Thursday, March 17, at the Pomona Courthouse in department “O” at 8:30 a.m. PT.
The case is Davick v. Holiday Inn Express, et al. (BC566602) in the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, Central District.
