This is called consent, something Erin Andrews was never allowed the option to give.Quote:
Originally Posted by Coach34
And LOL at the thought that $2 million is truly punitive to a company the size of Marriott.
Printable View
This is called consent, something Erin Andrews was never allowed the option to give.Quote:
Originally Posted by Coach34
And LOL at the thought that $2 million is truly punitive to a company the size of Marriott.
No, what he is saying is that a verdict of $55M shows that the demand of $75M was not absurd. And clearly it was not, given the result.Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnson85
The vast majority doesn't have even the slightest clue what they are talking about in this thread. A couple of all encompassing points to respond to the thread as a whole:
1. As a Plaintiff, Andrews is entitled to demand any amount of monetary damages she wishes. Whether you, me, Bob the plumber, or whoever agrees with it is completely irrelevant. That's what trial, juries, and judges are for. She has to make her case and convince a panel of citizens that she is right and that she is entitled to recover her damages. In this case, she clearly made her case - they awarded her $55M.
2. I don't think some of you quite understand how insurance premiums work when you say that WE are really going to be paying this. The insurance company isn't likely going to be paying anything over their policy limits, which are paid for by the premiums their insured pays. What those limits are in terms of these Defendants, who knows? I can tell you that the pervert won't likely be insured or paying anything in this. He'll file bankruptcy, or she'll have to put forth a lot of effort to put liens on any real property he has. Maybe she will do that out of spite for what he did to her, maybe not. As for the involved insurance carriers, they do this sort of thing all the time, so it is likely that they took the appropriate steps to keep from being put in a position to be responsible for an excess verdict (above their policy limits). If not, their panel counsel just lost a big client. A big verdict like this doesn't exactly just get passed down to EVERY other customer of the insurance company, either. It will get passed back down to the insureds involved in this in terms of their premiums going up, or they may simply drop these insureds altogether. If insurance companies worked the way you guys are claiming, then every one of our car premiums would go up daily - anytime someone else covered by that insurance company has an accident.
3. In terms of what Andrews will actually get - the hotel Defendants are on the hook for about $27M with the pervert on the hook for $28M. Take that $28M out of the picture right away. The other Defendants will appeal. During the appeal process they will re-enter settlement negotiations, perhaps with an eye towards the policy limits (Andrews' attorneys will know that it is unlikely that she will actually be able to recover much outside the policy limits - again, unless the carriers somehow managed to not protect themselves). It is actually possible that between the Defendants, they have enough coverage to get to the verdict % they are responsible for with excess coverage and other coverage perhaps being on the table. Not a one of us will ever really know the answer to that. In renewed settlement negotiations, they will come to a new number, lower than the $27M. Her lawyers will then take 40% off the top, first. They will then pay any litigation fees that were racked up (court reporters, witness fees, expert witness fees, court costs, etc...). She'll get the remainder and pay what, 40%+ back to Uncle Sam, and be left with $4-$6M or so I'd bet.
Whether the verdict was completely unreasonable is not something that I, or anyone on this board, can say. Everyone is certainly entitled to an opinion, but unless you sat in the courtroom, listened to all the evidence from both sides, and weighed the evidence objectively, then any opinion that any of us have is just our own personal, biased thoughts on the topic in general. For better or worse, this is our legal process. It's been this way for generations, and I don't see it changing anytime soon.
What if it has harmed her mentally? Everywhere she goes, people remind her of the worst day in her life. A day in which she subject to one of the most humiliating things a woman could go through. That has to be very trying, psychologically. Does that psychological mind**** not hamper a career over the long run?Quote:
Originally Posted by maroonmania
I honestly don't understand the arguments against the amount of money, except for greed and jealousy. This is how our system works. We give companies a lot of freedom, but guess what? With that freedom comes the possibility that if you do something people don't consider right, you could lose money and possibly a great deal of money. That is one big check against the power of big private companies.
And most of the time it works. I don't particularly like the degree to which everyone sues each other, but there is no doubt that it is in place for a reason and does accomplish some of what it sets out to do.
Be glad for this verdict the next time you depend on a private company to protect your privacy.
My problem is I think it's excessive against the hotel. Of course, this is based on my understanding of their role.
My take is the perp figured out a way to exploit an oversight in the phone system installed at the hotel. He gained access to a hotel phone, asked for EA, was transferred, and a feature of the installed phone system showed the room # belonging to EA. It had never caused a problem before, was immediately addressed by the hotel, and has not happened since.
Then the perp walked by the room EA was in, noticed a room next to hers was being cleaned, so went back downstairs to request that room. So, in reality, the only thing the hotel did, as far as I know, was not realize the phone system they had installed (no doubt by a phone vendor) was displaying the room # of the phone it was being transferred to.
To me, this does not amount to gross negligence. But that's just my opinion. No incidents before and no incidents since make this an isolated incident, which I think should have had a big effect on the jurors, as should have the hotel modifying the peepholes immediately after. It didn't.
Also, why in the world would EA check into a hotel under her real name? Celebrities have known for centuries that you should not do that if you don't want to risk being hounded or stalked. This is not to say she deserved to have her privacy violated, but it was incredibly stupid and irresponsible on her part, which makes me think it should have an impact on her award amount from the hotel, not the perp, but the hotel.
Bottom line, I just don't feel the oversight on the phone system is worth anything remotely close to the 49% responsibility the hotel got from this jury, particularly given it was an isolated incident and was immediately addressed by the hotel as soon as they discovered the flaw.
Again, what do you think the franchise group did to merit punitive damages? Simple negligence does not give rise to punitive damages.Quote:
Originally Posted by missouridawg
This is fair, but some seem to be railing against the system for allowing this kind of settlement to take place.Quote:
Originally Posted by blacklistedbully
You can take issue with the jury while understanding why the system works the way it does. There are juries that make questionable decisions all the time.
That's just not how the real world works at all. If it were, you'd see everybody just asking for infinite damages. In most cases, what a plaintiff asks for is just about irrelevant. But getting $55M (or really $27M) is not an indication that asking for $75M (or really $37.5M) was a reasonable request or that the plaintiff's lawyers undershot by "only" asking for $75M.Quote:
Originally Posted by missouridawg
The insurance company would pressure them to correct the issue because of paying a $2M judgment. I'm really curious as to how long you think it would take to get $2M in premiums from a hotel franchisee? Based on your statements, you really should either be starting your hotel or an insurance company. Because you obviously think they one or the other is just a license to 17ing print money.Quote:
Originally Posted by dawgs
Yes, car manufacturers (and really all manufacturers and to a lesser extent other businesses) constantly have to make trade-offs between costs, quality, and the preference of their customers/clients. It's not very helpful to compare absolute numbers between a car manufacturer that generates over a billion dollars of net income in a quarter to a hotel franchisee that might get $5M a year in net income.Quote:
Originally Posted by dawgs
But more importantly, how would you propose that hotels andor car manufacturers do their cost-benefit analysis? Don't you want them to compare actual costs and benefits? You don't want the cheapest available car to cost $100k and you don't want the cheapest available hotel room to cost $500. If a company's negligence caused enough damages that paying for them will bankrupt them, then that's the way it's supposed to work. But you don't want (or shouldn't want if you understand it) a system that routinely bankrupts companies not because of actual damages resulting from their negligence, but just because you think it puts a good incentive in place.
What's funny about the "don't give her more than $2M", is that when its all said and done, she probably won't actually get much more than $2M. Lawyer's fees, taxes, little to no collection from the stalker, etc. while $2M or even $5M is a nice chunk of change, it's not life changing for someone of her means. If you start handing her only $2M, from which she has to pay her attorneys and taxes, etc, then it's not even worth her time and mental anguish to go through with the lawsuit, and the hotel gets off without any punishment.
Depending on what the value of the hotel franchisee group is, she's still in line for well over $2M. If she's paying 55% attorneys fees (which would be out of line high, a more likely number would be fees and then 40% after fees), she's still looking at her share of the collectible judgment being over 12M, and after federal taxes are paid shell still pocket over $7M (I'm assuming that being in Tennessee it will be subject to TN's state income tax, or lack thereof, but not sure how that works).Quote:
Originally Posted by dawgs
But also, it's sort of disingenuous to talk about her legal fees as if she didn't have any control over them. She could have agreed to an hourly rate and gotten out of the entire case for $2M and probably closer to $1M without having to go with budget lawyers. It's perfectly understandable that she went with a contingency fee to decrease risk, but her choosing to avoid risk shouldn't be used as an excuse to gross up the award for a contingency fee.
What does an attorney taking a case on contingency have to do with budget lawyers? That's pretty common practice, especially in high dollar cases like this one. The attorneys in a case like this one would typically prefer a contingency fee arrangement.
I'm not sure I understand some of the arguments being tossed around either. If you want to argue that the legal system employed by our country is corrupt, wrong, or something along those lines, then fine. But, the result in this particular case is reasonably achieved in the framework of our legal system.
The point is that you can't use the fact that she will "only" net $7M as an argument for why $55M is a reasonable judgment when there are no economic, physical, or punitive damages. Assuming the franchisee group is good for it, she will receive $27M. The fact that she chose to trade off half of that verdict in exchange for bearing no risks for the litigation costs doesn't mean the verdict against the hotel franchisee should be higher. The whole point about the budget lawyers is that she could have gotten very good, very expensive lawyers and still come out for less than $2M, which would have left her around $15M net after taxes and legal fees.Quote:
Originally Posted by 2006Dawg
There is no argument that her attorneys fees dictate that her recovery should be higher. What the attorneys get plays no part in what recovery a Plaintiff has. It's not blackboard-able damages. Nor am I using what she may ultimately get in recovery as a reason for why the verdict was reasonable. Honestly, without being in the Courtroom for the entire trial, and hearing and seeing all of the evidence presented on both sides, I have no basis to say that the verdict is or isn't reasonable. Neither do you. What I am saying is that she went through the established legal process, and the result of that process was a verdict of $55M. At least for now. The result of the legal process seems to say that the verdict was reasonable, but there is always the chance that you get your validation through appeal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnson85
I'm not sure there are many lawyers out there who would take on a case like this on an hourly rate. I'm sure there are some, but most would be insisting on contingency, I'd imagine.
The post I was responding to made exactly that argument. And my post quoted it, so I'm not sure where the confusion was.Quote:
Originally Posted by 2006Dawg
So far, nobody has reported that Andrews received punitive damages. It's also fairly likely that there were no economic damages. While it's certainly not conclusive, there is a basis to think that the verdict is unreasonable, because $55M for emotional distress, when there is no accompanying economic damage or physical injury and no behavior justifying punitive damages, is unreasonable. It may come to light that there was a finding of gross negligence or outrageous behavior that justifies punitive damages, but based on the information available, it seems more likely than not that the verdict was unreasonable.Quote:
Originally Posted by 2006Dawg
You would imagine incorrectly. Many would prefer a contingency as they would expect it to work out economically for them, and there would probably be some whose business model is to only take contingency cases, but she would have had no problem getting an hourly rate.Quote:
Originally Posted by 2006Dawg