Carbon monoxide verdict of $34M survives challenge

Posted: 1:45 pm Wed, September 8, 2010
By Barbara Grzincic
Managing Editor/Law

A Baltimore judge has refused to throw out or reduce a jury’s $34.3 million award to 20 restaurant workers over a carbon monoxide leak at a waterfront hotel in 2008.

The Pier 5 Hotel’s owner and its operator sought a new trial, or, failing that, significant reductions in the jury’s awards to the workers and their spouses.

Judge Audrey J.S. Carrion, who presided over the three-month trial in Baltimore City Circuit Court, denied the defendants’ 265-page motion in a two-page order late Tuesday afternoon.

Carrion also denied the defendants’ request for a hearing on the motion, saying it “would not further aid the Court in the decisional process.”

The trial in the case began in early May and spanned nearly 50 days of testimony and argument. The jury deliberated for three days before returning with the verdicts on July 28.

Represented by lawyers from Murphy P.A., the plaintiffs argued the hotel’s hot-water boilers spewed poisonous exhaust into the Ruth’s Chris restaurant on the premises. (The restaurant was not a defendant.) According to their closing arguments, responding firefighters detected carbon monoxide levels of nearly 700 parts per million — seven times the 100 parts per million that compels building evacuation.

The defendants did not dispute the leak, focusing instead on the extent of the plaintiffs’ damages.

The jury found hotel owner TPOB Pier Five LLC and operator Meyer Jabara Hotels LLC each liable for negligence and an intentional public nuisance, and Meyer Jabara liable for battery. In her ruling Tuesday, Carrion denied the defendants’ motion for Judgment Notwithstanding the Verdict on those counts.

Carrion likewise denied the defendants’ request to find the awards excessive or to cap the pain-and-suffering awards, which ranged from $285,000 to $3.75 million,  at no more than $695,000 per plaintiff. Plaintiffs’ lawyers at Murphy P.A. argued the cap should not apply because the jury found intentional conduct.

The defense also challenged several evidentiary rulings and pointed to courtroom “antics” by lead counsel William H. “Billy” Murphy Jr., arguing that they warranted a new trial. Carrion rejected that claim as well.

Related coverage of this case:

• Click here for a breakdown of the damage awards by plaintiff

• From the July 27 issue: “Restaurant carbon monoxide case closes”

• From the July 19th issue of Maryland Lawyer: “The shadow jury”

• From the July 19th issue of Maryland Lawyer: “The shadow jury’s case: Ruth’s Chris vs. hotel owner”

Legal affairs writer Brendan Kearney contributed to this article.