The Missouri Court of Appeals issued this opinion on December 3 upholding a $149 million punitive damages award in a case involving a compensatory damages award of $28 million.
The case involved a hotel security guard who used a master key to enter the room of a hotel guest and sexually assault her. The plaintiff sued Hyatt for negligent hiring, supervision, and training.
On appeal Hyatt argued that the record was insufficient to support any award of punitive damages. The Court of Appeals disagreed, holding that the punitive damages were justified by Hyatt’s failure to enforce its own policies, and by its failure to cooperate with the police investigation of the assault.
Hyatt seemingly would have had a strong argument that the amount of the award is excessive, in light of the Supreme Court caselaw stating that punitive damages generally should not exceed the amount of compensatory damages in case involving “substantial” compensatory damages, but the opinion does not indicate that Hyatt raised that issue. Perhaps Hyatt’s counsel had reason to believe this particular court would not be receptive to that argument.