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Erin Andrews Trial (1 Viewer)

matttyl said:
Agreed.  That's pretty much exactly what I said.  Everyone deserves the same level of duty to security.
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In determining liability that is correct.  But from a law and economics perspective (keeping in mind that the field is often lousy economics and worse law) the theory is that you can't separate the two. 

Businesses may very well choose to not implement policies to prevent their employees from committing torts if the cost of those policies would be more than the cost of paying the judgments related to the torts.  What a case like this does is to educate employers not necessarily about the duty, but about the scope of liability they may be subject to for breaking that duty.

 
Ramsay Hunt Experience said:
What do you mean "now?"  Respondeat superior isn't some new, revolutionary legal doctrine.  It's been the rule for over 300 years.
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"Now" in this case was specifically talking about allowing someone to reserve a room in the same manner that Barrett did, but that the corporate policy was going to be to allow it under the condition that a clerk made a phone call to ask if that was ok. 

 
LAUNCH said:
"Now" in this case was specifically talking about allowing someone to reserve a room in the same manner that Barrett did, but that the corporate policy was going to be to allow it under the condition that a clerk made a phone call to ask if that was ok. 
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I do agree with you that the "best" policy "now" would be to just simply not allow this practice.  But, again, you do see the point that just implementing some reasonable safeguard (here, the simple act of confirming with the guest who originally booked) may provide a defense to a negligence claim, correct?

 
matttyl said:
I don't think celebrities deserve any heightened level of duty.  Every guest deserves a reasonable level of privacy, celebrity or not.  But because of this a celebrity will get it, because if not they get $55m - when if the same thing happened to any of us shlubs, it would be well under $1m if anything.
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A celebrity is more likely to have someone trying to get photos of him/her in this kind of way.  That means it's more likely to be a concern.  A more likely concern is more necessary to guard against.  That's why there's more of a duty.

 
Ramsay Hunt Experience said:
It doesn't heighten the duty.  It heightens the damages.  Say I drive negligently and hit a car.  I could hit a janitor's car and ruin his career or I could hit Bryce Harper's car and ruin his career.  I've violated the same duty in each case.  But the damages would vary greatly.
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I disagree.  See above - a more likely safety issue means a heightened duty for an innkeeper.  Can an innkeeper reasonably expect that someone might be moving rooms to be next to Joe Schmo and see his Willy? Probably not.  Can the innkeeper reasonably expect that someone wants a naked pic of a celeb? Seems like a reason to be more suspicious and guard the celebrity with more care.

 
So what changes will hotels make as a result of this case?

Some ideas:

  1. Remove caller ID on room phones and house phones. 
  2. Remove ability to call directly from room to room.
  3. Remove peepholes or place covers on the inside. 
  4. Improve door sweeps so cameras cannot be fed under the doors.
  5. Ask people to sign when they check-in whether they're a "celebrity/VIP" and require any special notices, then flag those accounts so staff knows.
  6. Ask for a picture of said celebrities/VIPs so staff knows who they are and can watch for unusual behavior of other guests. 
Others? What might you do to mitigate risk if you owned a hotel?

 
Henry Ford said:
I disagree.  See above - a more likely safety issue means a heightened duty for an innkeeper.  Can an innkeeper reasonably expect that someone might be moving rooms to be next to Joe Schmo and see his Willy? Probably not.  Can the innkeeper reasonably expect that someone wants a naked pic of a celeb? Seems like a reason to be more suspicious and guard the celebrity with more care.
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Seems more like a reason to refuse the celebrity a room and not have to deal with the mess at all.

 
Henry Ford said:
A celebrity is more likely to have someone trying to get photos of him/her in this kind of way.  That means it's more likely to be a concern.  A more likely concern is more necessary to guard against.  That's why there's more of a duty.
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When you are a borderline B celebrity at the time of your stay, there should be a duty to alert the hotel that you are a celebrity. 

 
parasaurolophus said:
How on earth do you determine that the stalker psycho was basically just as liable as the hotel? I mean jesus. Some 12 dollar an hour shmoe gets duped by a perv and then the owners have to pony up 26 million? Absolute joke. Lawyers sure are great for this country.  
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There were lawyers on the jury?

 
Henry Ford said:
I disagree.  See above - a more likely safety issue means a heightened duty for an innkeeper.  Can an innkeeper reasonably expect that someone might be moving rooms to be next to Joe Schmo and see his Willy? Probably not.  Can the innkeeper reasonably expect that someone wants a naked pic of a celeb? Seems like a reason to be more suspicious and guard the celebrity with more care.
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Prior to this situation, how often were people getting nude videos of celebrities in hotels via altered peepholes?  You keep using the term "reasonably expect", and I'm not sure that the hotel could have reasonably expected this to have happened in 2008 - as I'm not sure it had ever happened before this, though I could be wrong. 

 
matttyl said:
Prior to this situation, how often were people getting nude videos of celebrities in hotels via altered peepholes?  You keep using the term "reasonably expect", and I'm not sure that the hotel could have reasonably expected this to have happened in 2008 - as I'm not sure it had ever happened before this, though I could be wrong. 
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When you break it down to that very specific instance, probably none.  When you take it in the generic, have Hotels for decades been aware that obsessed fans will try to invade the privacy of celebs, and will paparazzi  try to photograph them, well then the answer is otherwise, just ask Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, Elvis, .....  Hotels are used to having secured floors, their own security, and to working with security for the rich and famous.  many hotels like to brag on the Kings, Queens, presidents, and celebrities who have stayed there.  Many have worked regularly with Secret Service.  No, reasonable expectations at a hotel do include security consciousness.  Now as to how security conscious, and how foreseeable this instance was or might have been, and how preventable and by what efforts, well I think that question is still open, even after being answered, somewhat, in the instant case.

 
And now we're comparing the celebrity status of Andrews to that of rock stars, royalty, and the President?  I don't think EA ever had to worry about any paparazzi, though maybe crazed fans.  So should the hotel have been away that EA at the time may have had "obsessed fans"?  Should it have been EA or ESPN who informed the hotel of it?

 
matttyl said:
And now we're comparing the celebrity status of Andrews to that of rock stars, royalty, and the President?  I don't think EA ever had to worry about any paparazzi, though maybe crazed fans.  So should the hotel have been away that EA at the time may have had "obsessed fans"?  Should it have been EA or ESPN who informed the hotel of it?
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No, I am not comparing her fame to theirs.  I was simply addressing the question of whether there is an expectancy that hotels are security conscious and have experience in that area, a point I believe I made well.  If you wish to take it farther, believing it somehow buttresses your position, that is on you.  I was addressing the subject matter only.

 
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matttyl said:
And now we're comparing the celebrity status of Andrews to that of rock stars, royalty, and the President?  I don't think EA ever had to worry about any paparazzi, though maybe crazed fans.  So should the hotel have been away that EA at the time may have had "obsessed fans"?  Should it have been EA or ESPN who informed the hotel of it?
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I don't know.  Let's ask a jury.

 
Henry Ford said:
I don't know.  Let's ask a jury.
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I was under the impression, maybe wrongly, that the jury felt that the hotel was more at fault because of "telling him" what room number she was in (due to the way their phones worked), and acquiesced to his request of a specific room number - not for their knowledge or lack thereof of who she was.

 
matttyl said:
I was under the impression, maybe wrongly, that the jury felt that the hotel was more at fault because of "telling him" what room number she was in (due to the way their phones worked), and acquiesced to his request of a specific room number - not for their knowledge or lack thereof of who she was.
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Whether or not that is true doesn't have any bearing on whether they also have a heightened duty to go with a heightened expectation of security concerns.

 
I thought the entire Andrews family crushed it.  She seemed very hurt and very vulnerable.  She came off as a vulnerable and victimized daughter, a little girl, not a sex bomb celebrity - something extremely difficult to accomplish with a 37 year old sex bomb.  Her mother and her father established strong family ties, old fashioned values, and were protective and genuinely, or so it seemed, hurt for their little girl.  They made it seem a violation as much or more than an exploitation, though both would have had some effect on the jury.  The inexplicable, to them, nature of the violation came through as beyond the pale hurtful.  The optics, at least the optics that I saw, could not have been better.  If credit for the presentation goes to her lawyers they killed it.  I was so convinced that I did not even truly see the lawyers hand in any sandpapering.  They understated everything to great effect.

Ideal witnesses in my mind, just ideal.

 
Ditkaless Wonders said:
I thought the entire Andrews family crushed it.  She seemed very hurt and very vulnerable.  She came off as a vulnerable and victimized daughter, a little girl, not a sex bomb celebrity - something extremely difficult to accomplish with a 37 year old sex bomb.  Her mother and her father established strong family ties, old fashioned values, and were protective and genuinely, or so it seemed, hurt for their little girl.  They made it seem a violation as much or more than an exploitation, though both would have had some effect on the jury.  The inexplicable, to them, nature of the violation came through as beyond the pale hurtful.  The optics, at least the optics that I saw, could not have been better.  If credit for the presentation goes to her lawyers they killed it.  I was so convinced that I did not even truly see the lawyers hand in any sandpapering.  They understated everything to great effect.

Ideal witnesses in my mind, just ideal.
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The witnesses did a great job, and the lawyers built the strategy around that.  It was great work all around.

 
Going forward...what kind of changes will we see in hotel security?

-Airport style security as you enter the lobby? "Welcome to Hilton, please place all your stuff in this plastic tray."

-Full cavity searches before you can have the room key?

 
Ministry of Pain said:
Going forward...what kind of changes will we see in hotel security?

-Airport style security as you enter the lobby? "Welcome to Hilton, please place all your stuff in this plastic tray."

-Full cavity searches before you can have the room key?
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I see gross hyperbole has made an appearance. Sit down and have a cup of tea, will you?

 
Ministry of Pain said:
Going forward...what kind of changes will we see in hotel security?

-Airport style security as you enter the lobby? "Welcome to Hilton, please place all your stuff in this plastic tray."

-Full cavity searches before you can have the room key?
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Swedish Fish will be locked behind bulletproof glass.

 
What this hotel did was pretty gross negligence. I have worked at several hotels ranging widely in cost and prestige, and not revealing room numbers was always a strict rule given much attention. Whether it was someone asking for another's room number or simply not saying a number out loud at check-in (e.g., pointing to the number on the guest's key card packet and saying, "This is your room number" as opposed to "You will be staying in room 325").

Putting a phone clearly intended for office use that reveals room numbers on the display out for guests to use is really, really bad.

 
Ministry of Pain said:
Going forward...what kind of changes will we see in hotel security?

-Airport style security as you enter the lobby? "Welcome to Hilton, please place all your stuff in this plastic tray."

-Full cavity searches before you can have the room key?
Click to expand...
It should actually be pretty simple.  If someone calls the hotel looking to contact a guest all the hotel has to say is, "give us your contact info, if we have someone staying here with that name we will forward the info to them".

That leaves the hotel out of making judgement calls, gives the power entirely to the guest at the hotel.

 
chauncey said:
Erin Andrews wins $55 million in a lawsuit against Marriott and a perv over an unauthorized nude video.

Hulk Hogan is suing Gawker for $100 million for publishing an unauthorized sex tape.

It will be interesting to see if he gets the same amount of sympathy from the media and public. 
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A jury just awarded Hogan $115M, so...

 
So who actually will collect more, Andrews or Hogan? As in their final takeaway amount after they collect what they can, after taxes, legal fees, etc. 

 
Here's SI's story on it.

It was $60 million in compensatory damages plus $55 million in punitives.

Gawker's defense is based in the First Amendment, which is a good thing to appeal on because it's easy to argue that the trial judge gave the wrong instructions to the jury -- their argument will be based in law, not in fact.

The problem with appealing is that you can't appeal without posting a bond for a buttload of money (typically at least the amount of the judgment -- though the judge may have discretion to reduce the amount).

To continue to exist, Gawker will probably have to settle in a way that allows them to pay Hogan out of future earnings -- most likely by giving Hogan a large equity stake in the business. I don't know how likely Hogan is to accept something like that rather than just see them die.

 
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Deadspin sucks, along with all of gawker media. They ran off the talent. Your basically reading 25 yr old interns now

 
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