A Bedbug Infestation At A Hotel Nets One Family More Than Half A Million Bucks
Hotel rooms may be dirty, but nobody likes thinking about that. As long as a hotel room is well kept up and the sheets are washed, then a hotel guest cannot complain. We have all stayed at hotels or motels that were not as fancy as the ritz, but at least the hotel rooms have always been free of bedbugs, right? If, by small chance, you have stayed in a hotel room that was infested with bedbugs, then I am sorry. Hopefully, you raised quite a fuss with management, but it is unlikely that the hotel agreed to pay you half of one million dollars for your inconvenience. However, one particular family was recently awarded $546,000 in damages for checking into a hotel room that had been infested with bedbugs.
A judge in San Bernardino County has recently awarded Martha, Alex and Marcus McKindra more than five hundred thousand dollars in order to pay medical bills and to help the family cope with emotional stress as a result of staying in a bedbug infested guest-room at the Hilton Garden Inn Ontario/Rancho Cucamonga. Five hundred thousand dollars is a lot of emotional stress. I hope the money gives them some peace. And of course it will, as the family’s lawyer claimed that such a startling amount of money has never been awarded to a plaintiff before over a lawsuit involving bugs. In fact, this particular judgement resulted in the largest payout in history for a bedbug-related legal case. The family’s lawyer stated that the payout was large because some hotel and motel owners need to improve on their efforts to make their lodgings as safe as possible for their guests.
The family sustained several bites on their skin from bedbugs while staying at the hotel. These bites quickly turned to rashes. Initially the family did not take notice of a bedbug infestation, but when they woke up with itchy sensations, they knew what they were dealing with. Unfortunately, hotel employees could not move the family to a new room because the hotel was fully booked. The family then moved on to another hotel. The second highest amount of money to be awarded to a plaintiff over a bedbug dispute was four hundred and sixty thousand dollars.
If you found bedbugs in your hotel room would you file a lawsuit?
