Winning Lawyer Says Victim Blaming Fueled $44M Houston Verdict
"On balance, we think Hilton has a responsibility here," plaintiffs attorney Ed Blizzard recounted telling the jury. "What kind of hotel makes an error like this, and puts a woman in the wrong room, and then she is sexually assaulted, blames her? They didn't really treat her as a human being, much less as a guest in the hotel."
November 24, 2021 at 03:03 PM
6 minute read
Victim blaming is what really incensed the jury that awarded $44 million to a hotel guest who alleged she was raped after Hilton employees put her in the wrong room, according to the winning lawyer.
Security video entered into evidence showed an unconscious woman being taken in a wheelchair into the room of a man who told police and hotel security officials, "She's with me." The man and woman were co-workers who had been drinking with other colleagues at a business conference that night in March 2017, according to the complaint. Earlier, another woman passing by had called 911 to report seeing the same man with his belt unbuckled and his pants unzipped on top of the same unconscious woman lying on the sidewalk just outside the Hilton Americas-Houston Hotel in downtown Houston. When police and hotel security officers arrived, they took her to his room, never checking her identification that was in her purse—which he was holding—to see that she had her own room, Ed Blizzard of Blizzard Law told Law.com on Wednesday.
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