Below are some examples of just a few lawsuits in 2013:
| Hotel settles bedbug lawsuit with tenants |
| October 18, 2013, 05:00 AM By Michelle Durand Daily Journal |
The terms of the settlement with the Industrial Hotel are confidential but the Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County, which partnered with attorneys from the Menlo Park firm of Alston and Bird, said it is satisfied the tenants will “have a safe and habitable place to live going forward.”A South San Francisco residential hotel settled a lawsuit filed on behalf of a mentally disabled tenant over a 18-month bedbug infestation the landlord allegedly failed to eradicate. The bedbug infestation was among a number of substandard housing conditions like mold and water leaks that made some of the units uninhabitable, according to David Carducci, director of litigation for the Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County. Carducci said the plaintiff, Federico Assogna, had been “very vocal” about the conditions and complained to the owners and managers on behalf of himself and other tenants. The repeated bites every night are terrible for anyone but people with mental health issues find it even harder because it exacerbates anxiety, depression and sleep loss, Carducci said. His client once jumped out of bed because of a bite, lost his balance and struck his ribs on the frame which resulted in his hospitalization with a breathing device, Carducci said. The hotel owner did hire a pest control company early on but the provider was inexperienced with bedbugs and the situation was not fixed, he said. “He went on the cheap for a year and a half and let the tenants suffer,” he said. After receiving an eviction notice which the hotel claimed was to claim back four units for another service provider, Assogna turned to the Legal Aid Society which filed the suit in May 2012 in San Francisco Superior Court cited both the infestation and retaliation based on the attempted ousting after his complaints. A second case was filed by an Oakland attorney on behalf of nine other residents. M. Stacey Hawver, executive director of the Legal Aid Society, praised the resolution. “Individuals with mental health disabilities often have difficulty exercising their legal rights, and today, the tenants in the Industrial Hotel had a strong voice and were heard,” Hawver said in a prepared statement. |
Maryland Bedbug Lawsuit: Faika Shaaban Awarded $800,000 In Suit Against Landlord
The Huffington Post | By Ron Dicker Posted: 06/03/2013 1:20 pm EDT | Updated: 06/03/2013 1:30 pm EDT
An Annapolis, Md., woman was awarded a record $800,000 in a bedbug lawsuit against her landlord, the Baltimore Sun reported.
Faika Shaaban, 69, will receive $650,000 of the amount in punitive damages, spotlighting the growing sympathy that juries have with plaintiffs in infestation cases, the Sun said.
Lawyers told the Sun it was the biggest verdict they'd heard of among similar civil actions. Shaaban's attorney, Daniel W. Whitney, said the Anne Arundel County jury that heard Shaaban's case sent a message to landlords who ignore the problem.
"It only gets worse and it causes a lot of suffering," he told The Huffington Post on Monday.
Whitney said the large payout might also "make people more aware that they have legal rights."
The jury took just 45 minutes to reach a decision and its award was twice what Shaaban sought, according to the Capital Gazette, which reported the skin-crawling details of the case earlier.
The court heard that Shaaban moved into the home owned by the defendant, Cornelius J. Barrett and West Street Partnership, in September 2011, and was soon covered in "scabs and lesions from head to toe" according to the Gazette. Whitney asserted that Barrett knew all along the house was infested with the blood-sucking insects and had been ordered by the city to eradicate the problem. A county housing worker inspected Shaaban's bites the following April and told her they were from bedbugs. Shaaban then reported Barrett, who took several retaliatory measures, including eviction.
Bed Bug Problem Prompts Lawsuit Against Concord Apartment Landlord
October 24, 2013 6:23 AM
A ‘bed bug nymph, Cimex lectularius (CDCP)
CONCORD (CBS SF) — More than a dozen residents of a Concord apartment
complex are suing their landlord over an array of issues, including a bed bug infestation.
KPIX 5 reporter Juliette Goodrich saw the infestation first hand, in an apartment where bed bug waste covered the ceiling, and live bed bugs could be plucked from drapes.
While some residents covered their mattresses in plastic, Jim LaRosa had to throw his in the trash.
“I bought a new bed, and it was infested again,” said LaRosa, who had lived in the complex for 16 years.
LaRosa and other residents, including children were covered in bites from the pests, which feed on blood, and usually bite at night.
The lawsuit claims the apartment is infested with bed bugs, and the tenants are living in substandard housing conditions. But, the apartment manager says they have repeatedly sprayed and painted the units, only for the bugs to keep coming back, and not just to those apartments.
“All of the apartments have bed bugs, it’s not just here, it’s all of them,” apartment manager Leo Oceano said.
The lawsuit seeks monetary damages to eradicate the bed bug problem for good.
HOTEL SUES GUEST FOR 95K OVER BAD REVIEW, BEDBUGS
The night of April 26th, Laurent Azoulay stayed with his son and entire sports team at the Hotel Quebec, one in a popular chain on the avenues des Hôtels. In the middle of the night, Laurent woke with a startle as he felt bed bugs biting his leg. He had the presence of mind to trap a few of the perpetrators in a glass for proof before migrating down to the front desk.
As the particular hotel was full for the night, the managers offered him $40 for the inconvenience and to move him to an available room in a nearby hotel, also in the Jaro chain, promising that tomorrow a clean room would be available at the Hotel Quebec. Mr. Azoulay refused to relocate, and the next afternoon settled up and quit the chain entirely – though not before telling guests he passed about the bugs, convincing them they should pack up as well. Notably, he told the director of the hotel that she should “get on her knees and beg him not to tell this story to anyone.”
But he did tell the story: the next day, he wrote a scathing review on the hugely popular website, Trip Advisor, which features prominently the presence of bed bugs. And he was right that Jaro Hotels should have begged: travelers hearing about the potential infestation don’t want to risk their personal belongings and health; the review is an objective deterrent. Since Mr. Azoulay’s stay and subsequent critique, Jaro Hotels has been inundated with calls assessing the issue and reports a real dip in business. The hotel does not dispute the presence of bed bugs that night but vehemently asserts Mr. Azoulay’s room was the only one affected in the hotel and chain at large. No other incidents of the kind have been reported at least in recent history, and the hotel has vowed to do everything it can to avoid a recurrence of the issue.
Despite entreaties, the review remains; Mr. Azoulay refuses to take it down, and now, for the reputation damage and lost profits it has caused, the hotel’s GM Jacques Robitaille has filed a lawsuit against Mr. Azoulay for $95,000. Sigh. A lot of lessons here.
The episode presents another classic example of why the customer is always right, especially in the digital age. It is not worth getting your business locked into a blow-out; you maximize the issue and attract further publicity, the “Streisand Effect” at work. No matter what happened behind the scenes, in the spotlight of the media, first they were the hotel with bed bugs and now they’re the hotel suing their guests. Now it’s been decided the matter is worth 95K, the possibility of going back in time and settling probably looks pretty attractive to both parties; perhaps now the hotel would consider more than $40 to compensate for the inconvenience. While in some cases any buzz is good buzz, here not so much, and in hospitality, we imagine it’s difficult to bounce back from this kind of stigma.
Interestingly, this case raises legitimate questions about establishment/reviewer relationships as we find equilibrium in this new democratic, user-oriented system. On the one hand, what right do customers have to post reviews that negatively affect the business of the establishment? One has learned to be wary of the narrative that casts negative reviewers as Robin Hoods, getting the truth out as the corporation tries to smooth over glitches with a paid-for profile. As we saw earlier this week with Andy Johnston, Area Sales Manager for Groupon, this kind of negative attention around reviews has the power to make or break you and customers are not afraid to use it. We want to believe that critics use their reviewing power for good but that’s hardly the case, especially when the majority of unsolicited reviews are written by unhappy customers. When your business is threatened, shouldn’t you be able to protect yourself? Is filing a lawsuit for lost business your best option, a way to adopt even more strongly the position that you are an upstanding business?
On the other hand, what right does the corporation have to silence legitimate criticism on threat of a law suit? This guy from Montreal trapped the very bed bugs in a glass; he caught them in the act and no one’s denying it. When he was woken in the night by a bug bite, doesn’t he have the right to share his opinion with fellow customers as they evaluate how to spend their money? What are reviews supposed to be if not real accounts of customer experiences?
If the incident this April is anomalous, then we can feel sorry for the hotel; if standards are lax, however, we applaud their comeuppance. Either way, the press and lawsuit seem like a lot of hubbub over one night’s stay, and let this be a lesson to your business to settle with disgruntled customers before they alert the media.
