Yes it is. Don’t like federal regulation there either!!
I work in healthcare and unfortunately it was put in place for a reason.
I am in healthcare too. All the paperwork nonsense-- let’s not go off topic about that. That’s for the “say it here” vent thread!
Point is, she had a reasonable expectation of privacy, IMO. That said, where I live, most celebrities, if/when they check into a hotel, use an assumed name.
Typo.
Meant to add, whoever accused Erin of leaking the video as a publicity stunt needs to have their personal life plastered on the Internet. that, and they should be sued too.
What do folks think about Hulk Hogan’s $100M lawsuit against gawker magazine for sharing a sex tape of him with a friend’s wife, and the comparison to the Erin Andrews case?
^^^^Yikes. Hadn’t heard about that. How did Gawker get the tape?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/05/us/hulk-hogan-vs-gawker-suit-over-sex-tape.html?_r=0
It was leaked to the website Gawker apparently by an anonymous source, but apparently the “shock jock” whose house (and wife) it was was known to have cameras in his home, from what I read.
Hmm, well, I’m not for filming anyone naked without their express permission. The fact that he was doing something most people would perceive as wrong may weaken his case in a jury’s eyes, though, if it does go to a jury. I don’t know what applicable law would state as to him performing this act in the home where the cameras were present and his expectations of privacy as a result of that.
Is there a parallel between Erin being filmed naked without her permission and having it broadcast on the internet too? Separate from the “don’t sleep with your best friend’s wife” obvious “oops”, am interested in folks’ thoughts about the parallels and amount of $ for damages being requested.
My personal opinion is that no one should ever be filmed naked without permission, much less should said film be distributed without their permission.
I don’t see it as all that parallel. The issue in the Andrews case is whether the hotel was negligent. They did not actively film her or allow her to be filmed. They were, allegedly, negligent in their policies and procedures and how they were executed. If someone tapes themselves or it gets out and is published, I don’t see it as the same thing.
The big issue right now is teens voluntarily sexting each other- both boys and girls. This is a huge problem right now.
I haven’t followed the Hulk Hogan thing, but I don’t believe he was aware that he was being taped.
Apparently the judge in Hogan’s case disallowed him/his attorney from comparing his case to the Erin Andrews case http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/04/media/hulk-hogan-gawker-jury-seated/. If I understand correctly , and I may not, Hulk Hogan’s case is in part a first amendment issue.
“There would be no cause of action and these are reputable law firms that don’t threaten waitresses with lawsuits. She reported what she thought she saw, and it was not quite what actually happened. It’s a non-issue.”
Do you really believe that ‘reputable’ law firms don’t use their power, especially working with large corporate clients, to threaten people to keep them silent, or otherwise change things they don’t like? I’ll give you an idea of that, the movie “Concussion” was watered down by Sony (and this is not just speculation, when Sony was hacked , this came out) where the lawyers for the NFL threatened legal action if they didn’t change things they don’t like. One of the things about ‘reputable law firms’ is that deep pocket firms can silence people with threat of lawsuits, because someone like that waitress would then be in the position of facing high power lawfirms with unlimited resources and have to defend herself against that…the legal system is not exactly even in a case like this, a deep pockets firm has almost all the advantage, and the waittress none, unless someone backed her…and who would, since even if she won, she would have to pay for the hefty lawyer fees. Especially this case, when it would be her word against the corporate weasel and his guests, she could very easily be intimidated.
And there are a lot of cases where witnesses have been intimidated and it is perfectly legal, someone pointing out the consequences of talking up, private investigators looking into people’s backgrounds, it is a subtle form of intimidation and it works.
As far as her being ‘mistaken’, that is words that could come out of a John Grisham novel, where a witness says they were mistaken. Put it this way, the waitress had a lot less reason to lie, and given the way Marriot acted, including reputedly the representative in question, in court and in their public face, it would surprise me, they have shown nothing but arrogance and contempt for what happened to her. The Waitress didn’t try and sell her story to TMZ, there was no financial reason for her to fabricate this, while Marriot would have a lot of incentive to get her to keep silent.
musicprnt- I am a lawyer in this community. I know the defense lawyer and the law firm. This isn’t a huge firm and this isn’t a John Grisham novel This incident happened at dinner one evening and the matter was in court the next morning. The Marriott representative explained what happened and signed a statement. It’s not that big of a deal. Someone at dinner was an idiot and started to show the video. The guy says he wasn’t the one and that he made them stop. There was no significant contact with the waitress and no threats. This is not a deep pocket firm. It’s an excellent defense firm and they are doing the best they can for their client- including efforts to fairly settle the case.
You are completely off the wall on this one. It is a non-issue. If the jury got POd by it, then Marriott will get hit with more money.
Why is this a big issue if they were doing it voluntarily? Not saying they should but I would think they’d learn the lesson very fast. It happened in my kid’s school a long time ago when myspace was the place to go not Facebook. It happened once and that’s that.
I have a couple of comments on this. First of all, the request for 75 million in the complaint doesn’t really mean anything. It certainly doesn’t suggest that the plaintiff was holding out for anything like that much in settlement talks. Second, most likely the settlement talks did break down over the amount. If I were a betting man, I’d bet that the defense offered something less than a million bucks–probably a lot less–and the plaintiff was holding out for more than a million bucks. The defense decided to roll the dice because they don’t think a jury in that jurisdiction is likely to give multimillions in a case like this. They may be right.
It’s hard to say without knowing the facts in detail, but I think the plaintiff has a pretty good case in terms of proving negligence on the part of the hotel. They failed to protect the room number from somebody who wanted it for evil reasons–exactly how they failed may not be that important. I don’t think it matters a lot whether an employee gave it out, or if they left a phone that showed numbers available to an interloper.
Damages in a case like this are always tough, because you can’t really convert intangible harms into specific dollar amounts with any kind of scientific accuracy.
iglooo- You don’t think this is a big issue? If the sexts are re-sent, it is distribution of child porn in many cases. That makes it a pretty big deal. The pictures are used to extort that original senders to escalate the content, too.