Malone v. Courtyard by Marriott L.P.
| Decision Date | 17 May 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. 93APE10-1407,93APE10-1407 |
| Citation | 95 Ohio App.3d 74,641 N.E.2d 1159 |
| Parties | MALONE et al., Appellants, v. COURTYARD BY MARRIOTT LIMITED PARTNERSHIP et al., Appellees. * |
| Court | Ohio Court of Appeals |
Lane, Alton & Horst, Gregory D. Rankin and Patrick H. Boggs, Columbus, for appellants.
Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, David J. Young and Scott Pfahl, Columbus, for appellees.
On September 18, 1990, Lolita Malone and Karen Linda Meador filed a complaint in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, naming as defendants, inter alia, the Courtyard By Marriott Limited Partnership, d.b.a. Courtyard by Marriott ("Marriott"), and Vincent Gatewood. The complaint alleged that the defendants were liable in damages based on various tort theories as a result of Gatewood raping the two women during their stay at the Marriott hotel in Blue Ash, Ohio, during the early morning hours of July 22, 1989.
A jury trial ultimately commenced on June 21, 1993. At the close of the evidence, Marriott moved for a directed verdict as to all of the plaintiffs' claims. The trial court overruled the motion as to all claims except punitive damages. The court found that there were no genuine issues of fact as to whether Marriott's conduct could be the proper basis for a punitive damages award and, therefore, dismissed both plaintiffs' claims for punitive damages.
On June 29, 1993, the jury rendered a general verdict in favor of Marriott as to the claims of plaintiff Lolita Malone. With respect to plaintiff Karen Linda Meador, however, the jury rendered a general verdict in her favor and awarded her compensatory damages in the amount of $300,000. The trial court journalized the jury's verdict and the disposition of the motion for directed verdict in a judgment entry filed July 19, 1993.
On July 7, 1993, Marriott filed a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or, in the alternative, new trial or remittitur as to the Meador verdict. In an entry journalized September 13, 1993, the trial court granted Marriott's motion for a new trial and, accordingly, overruled the motions seeking alternative relief. In sustaining the motion for new trial, the trial court found the verdict was against the manifest weight of the evidence and that the award of damages was excessive. Therefore, the court vacated the judgment entry of July 19, 1993 as to Meador and ordered a new trial as to her claims.
The plaintiffs have timely appealed, assigning four errors for our consideration:
The assignments of error and the parties' various and conflicting recitations of facts adduced at trial compel us to conduct a detailed examination of the record. Our review of the transcript of proceedings reveals the following pertinent testimony regarding the occurrences at the Marriott during the late evening of July 21 and early morning hours of July 22, 1989.
Plaintiffs called as their first witness Brian V. Record, national claims examiner for the Marriott International Corporation, to testify as on cross-examination. He testified that the "safety and well-being" of Marriott guests "is of paramount importance" to Marriott and that Marriott "has the responsibility to reasonably insure the safety and security of all hotel guests." He acknowledged that every Marriott employee who is on notice that a guest is in danger has a duty to respond "in a reasonable fashion to deal with that danger."
Plaintiff Lolita Malone testified as to her recollection of the events of July 21 and 22, 1989, when she and Karen Linda Meador checked into the Marriott hotel. On July 21, 1989, she and Meador traveled from their homes in Columbus to Cincinnati to attend the Kool Jazz Festival. Malone planned to meet up with her boyfriend, Brian Hood, at some point. He lived in South Bend, Indiana, at the time and he was supposed to attend the concert with a friend of his who lived in the Cincinnati area.
The two women checked into the Marriott at approximately 11:30 p.m. on Friday, July 21, 1989. As the women entered the hotel and neared the elevator, a man started up a conversation with them. Malone recalled him saying that he was an accountant in Cincinnati on business, and she felt that he was familiar with the area. The women asked the man if he knew the location of certain nightclubs. Malone had intended to try to meet up with her boyfriend, Brian Hood, at these nightclubs later.
Malone described the man, who later identified himself to them as Vincent Michaels, as being about six feet tall, two hundred twenty pounds, "unattractive" and "professionally" dressed. His demeanor was "Michaels" was ultimately determined to be Vincent Gatewood.
Gatewood followed the women as they exited the elevator and entered their room, number 249. The conversation turned to the subject of a mutual friend of his and Malone's in St. Louis, where Gatewood said he lived. After approximately ten minutes in their room, Gatewood offered to go get some wine coolers, which offer the women accepted. He returned to their room shortly thereafter and the three of them drank wine coolers and talked.
At approximately 12:30 a.m., Meador answered a knock on their door. She told Malone that it was a security guard responding to a complaint about noise in their room. About ten minutes later, they asked Gatewood to leave their room so they could change their clothes before going out. Malone thought that he would be back soon to give them directions to the nightclubs they had been discussing. He returned at approximately 1:30 a.m., and suggested that the women go along with him in his car instead of him simply giving them directions. They declined his offer to go with him in his car. Instead, Malone explained that since they "had just met him [and] didn't know him very well," she thought it would be best if they just followed him in her car. Malone testified that, earlier in the evening, she had left a message for her boyfriend on his friend's answering machine. When she left the hotel, she still hoped to meet up with Hood later that evening.
The women drove in Malone's car, following Gatewood in his car, to three nightclubs, but they never actually went into the clubs. The first one was closed when they arrived. They "felt the crowd was too young * * * [and] somewhat rowdy" at the second club, and they did not like the crowd at the third club either. Therefore, they returned to the hotel, arriving there at approximately 3:30 a.m.
When they arrived back at the hotel, Gatewood once again followed them to their room. Although the women hinted around that they were tired and would like for him to leave, Gatewood continued to talk and offered to go get more drinks. He persisted, and finally Malone reluctantly agreed to allow him to get more drinks. Despite his persistence, she had not become fearful of him by this time.
He returned to the women's room, and Malone drank half of a wine cooler. She did not believe that Meador had any. When Gatewood left to get the drinks, Meador had changed into an "oversized dorm shirt" and gotten into bed. Malone did not change her clothes for bed because she planned to go back out and meet her boyfriend, who phoned her right after Gatewood had returned with the drinks at approximately 3:45 a.m. It was her understanding from that telephone conversation that she was to meet Hood at his friend's house. Initially, Meador said that she did not want to go with Malone to meet Hood. She changed her mind, however, after Gatewood leaned over her in bed and whispered something in her ear.
Meador got out of bed and asked Gatewood to leave so that she could change her clothes to go out again. He "wasn't very cooperative with her" and she became "adamant about him leaving." Their voices grew louder, and he approached Meador. Malone stepped between them because she "got the feeling that he was going to try to hurt her." Malone coaxed him away from Meador and out the door, and he "seemed to be calmed down at that point." Shortly thereafter, Gatewood began shouting obscenities in the hallway. Malone heard him say "something like there's some bitches in room 249." He then threw something at their door which resulted in a "loud crash."
Meador soon realized that she had misplaced her card key for the room and they "got the feeling that maybe Mr. Gatewood had it." Malone testified that Meador may have handed her card key to Gatewood for him to open the door when they returned to the room earlier. The women discovered the following day that the card key had actually been misplaced.
Malone cracked the door open and asked Gatewood if he had her friend's card key. For the first time, Gatewood displayed anger toward Malone directly and "rushed the...
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