Trial Magazine

Doe, 14, was staying with his family at a Marriott hotel in South Carolina. After he finished showering, he moved the shower’s sliding glass door, which shattered suddenly into sharp fragments. Doe suffered a severed nerve in his left arm, necessitating surgery. He incurred approximately $70,000 in medical expenses and has 2–3% impairment in the arm.

Doe sued the hotel’s owner and operator, alleging breach of the duty to inspect for unreasonably dangerous conditions, failure to warn, and failure to protect him from encountering a dangerous condition. The plaintiff asserted that there were 32 incidents of shattered glass shower doors at the defendants’ hotels—including 10 at that hotel—and that the defendants never attempted to determine the root cause of the incidents.

The plaintiff also claimed that the hardware holding the sliding door on its track had been installed improperly, allowing the door to fall off the track. Moreover, suit alleged, the defendants failed to install safety film on the shower doors and shut down the room until this work could be completed.

The defense asserted that the hotel room “met code.”

The parties settled for $3.5 million.

Citation: Doe v. Roe Hotel Owner, Confidential Dkt. No. (Confidential Jxn., Ct., & Date).

Plaintiff counsel: AAJ members David B. Yarborough Jr., Reynolds H. Blankenship Jr., and John J. Dodds IV, all of Charleston, S.C.

Plaintiff experts: Scott Harvey, architecture and building code analysis, North Charleston, S.C.; Stephanie Whetsel Borzendowski, human factors, Charleston; and Kyle Kokko, hand surgery, Mount Pleasant, S.C.