I’m beyond surprised. Shocked. Hotels routinely grant guest’s requests for specific room. Many people that travel a lot have a room they prefer. How was the hotel supposed to know they had a minor celebrity in the other room? Are they supposed to have a huge list taped on the wall of every special snowflake that requires strict procedures to protect? Erin was just a ESPN reporter. Not Lady Gaga. The hotel had no idea she’d attract a stalker.
It came out in trial that the stalker guy got her room number from the hotel’s phone system. It was displayed when her room was dialed. They have hundreds of guests staying in that hotel and this hasn’t posed a problem. Then one self-entitled ESPN reporter checks in and it costs them 55 million?
The guy responsible deservedly went to prison. That should be the end of it. I can’t see awarding her 55 million.
Ironically the video in question is terrible quality. Blurry, grainy, all she’s doing is brushing her hair. She’s almost unrecognizable in the video. Google Image her name nude and theres screen caps. They aren’t even worth a second look.
Compare her case to celebrities that got hacked a year ago. They had very clear, explicit, and embarrassing photos on the cloud that got released on the Internet. No ones awarded them 55 million.
You do know that you and I will be paying for this? 55 million is big money even for a large hotel chain. They’ll have to raise their room rates. That comes out of my pocket.
Will they discontinue letting people request a special room? Maybe the one a couple honeymooned in years earlier? Guests have requested a specific room at hotels ever since they first opened in the 1920’s and 30’s. Millions of people could could be effected if this booking policy is discontinued.
Maybe she can use the money that buy even more of the provocative clothes that she wore in a photo shoot in a locker room for “GQ” and “Dancing With The Stars”. All part of the healing process. But no time to visit her sick father in the hospital while on “DWTS”…ABC/ESPN had money to make off of that.
Maybe they’ll take their customers’ privacy more seriously. Hard to argue that that wouldn’t be a good thing.
Your OP is incredibly misogynist and ignorant. The hotel allowed a guest access to information he shouldn’t have had, which let him record another guest in the hotel (whose privacy they were supposed to ensure) and then publicize that recording. The hotel was penalized for that colossal fuckup. And you’re concern is with how much of the victim’s naked body you can see. Disgusting.
Yep. She was just a ESPN reporter. Unknown to many except sports fans. She’s become a big star since this case broke in the papers. Made a bunch of money.
The stalker guy that did this is beyond contempt. He deserved prison. I just don’t feel the hotel had any way of knowing this would happen. The stalker asked the desk to ring Erin’s room and he got her room number from the phone system’s display. He requests a specific room. Something guests do routinely. The staff had no idea he was targeting anybody.
It’s not giving him the room he requested, it’s letting the creep know what room she was in. That’s the problem. Hotel rates won’t go up as a result, because 1) they won’t pay the whole judgment (appeals/motions/settlements), and 2) they have insurance. Companies institute safer policies to avoid being sued. You do realize that makes the world a better place for you and me? A few big lawsuits now and then tend to remind them, and other companies, that poor policies have consequences. As I said, good for her.
Underline added. I’m quite sure the defense would have made arguments like that to the jury. Apparently, the 12 people who actually heard the evidence found the hotel negligent and found that the negligence caused the harm. Foreseeability is part of what Andrews would have had to prove.
and another thing. In almost all locations, we have a choice of hotels. We can stay in one that doesn’t give out its guests’ room numbers. By the way, this isn’t just a problem for celebrity stalkers, normal everyday people sometimes are trying to hide from abusive spouses, etc.
A $55 million settlement is ridiculous. How is that supposed to make up for her “mental suffering?” I can only hope she donates a substantial part to charity.
I’m still not quite getting the mechanics of this, I admit.
$55 million is a pretty crazy figure for any judgement that didn’t involve, say, the stalker killing her (or sufficiently injuring her to end her career).
I think this is the problem with jury-awarded settlements. To most people, there’s no difference between $55,000,0000 and a zillion jillion kabillion dollars, because they’re both impossibly large sums that they can’t even comprehend. 55 million is a fucking SILLY penalty amount for the liability of the hotel in this case.
She deserves every penny. I am so tired of people saying “She wasn’t even raped.”
You have no right to determine anyone else’s severity of trauma. Ask her what she would pay to have that video never exist, I guarantee she would have paid more than $55 million.
She deserves every penny. She deserves to do whatever she wants with it, to donate to spend it, or to withdraw it in cash and set fire to it in front of the hotel.
Ugh. $55m seems just crazy. It also seems crazy that the hotels have been deemed “49%” liable for this. The creep is doing 2.5 years which sounds reasonable although I wouldn’t cry if it had been longer.
By that argument, I should be able to demand and receive a comparable award for any inconvenience, because nobody (aside from a easily-convinced jury, one hopes) has any right to judge the severity of the trauma I can claim to have suffered.
Frankly, I’d be okay with a smaller cash judgement from the hotel coupled with her being given the right to shoot her stalker on sight if he ever approaches her again.