PITTSBURGH – A woman who claimed she was brutally assaulted by her ex-girlfriend at the Airport Marriott Hotel in Pittsburgh, has settled with both the hotel chains involved for negligence and the former girlfriend over the injuries she sustained.
On Nov. 15, counsel for plaintiff Ayana Slaughter filed a praecipe to settle and discontinue as to all defendants. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
Slaughter of Lafayette, La. first filed suit in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas on Dec. 27, 2017 versus W2005 Wyn Hotels, L.P., W2005 Wyn Hotels Genpar, LLC, Lodging Investors, LLC and Lodging Investors III, LLC, all of Moon Township, plus Leighastasia Antoinette Pete, of Oakdale, La.
(MPA Hotel, LLC, Crescent Hotels & Resorts, LLC were later added as defendants in May 2018.)
Per the lawsuit, the events in question took place at the Airport Marriott Hotel in Pittsburgh on July 24, 2016. During that month, Slaughter and Pete traveled from Louisiana to Pittsburgh with the Acadiana Zydeco women’s football team to participate in the Women’s Football Alliance National Championship.
The complaint stated Slaughter and Pete had, in the past, been involved in a dating relationship which ended on July 2, 2016. The suit said Pete did not take the break-up well and engaged in harassing and threatening behavior towards Slaughter, which resulted in the granting of a restraining order to Slaughter against Pete.
The Acadiana Zydeco women’s football team’s general manager honored the restraining order, requiring them to be kept apart and housed as far as possible from each other when traveling – information said to have been communicated to the staff of the Airport Marriott Hotel in Pittsburgh.
The suit said the Acadiana Zydeco women’s football team won its league championship on July 23, 2016, and returned to the Airport Marriott Hotel to celebrate, resulting in Pete becoming intoxicated.
The suit claimed at 6:30 a.m. the following morning, Pete went to the hotel’s front desk and asked for a copy of Slaughter’s room key – a room she was obviously not assigned to, per the restraining order – and it was granted.
Subsequently, Slaughter asserted in the lawsuit that Pete, in her intoxicated state and with an ill-gotten room key, went to her room and began to physically and violently assault her. Slaughter said she suffered various injuries to her face, head, knee and body as a result. Slaughter contends permitting Pete access to her room, in violation of the restraining order, was willfully and wantonly negligent and reckless.
After responses from the defendants filed in July 2018, the W2005 Wyn Hotels, L.P., W2005 Wyn Hotels Genpar, LLC, Lodging Investors, LLC and Lodging Investors III, LLC defendants were dismissed from the lawsuit the following December, leaving only MPA Hotel, LLC, Crescent Hotels & Resorts, LLC and Pete as defendants.
The case was then settled in November 2019.
Prior to settlement and for counts of negligence against the Marriott defendants and assault and battery against Pete, the plaintiff was seeking damages, jointly and severally, including compensatory and punitive damages in an amount in excess of the mandatory arbitration limits of Allegheny County, together with any and all associated interest costs and such other relief as the Court may deem to be just and proper, in addition to a trial by jury.
The plaintiff was represented by Steven M. Barth of Barth & Associates, in Pittsburgh.
The defendants were represented by Darren M. Newberry and Edward A. Schenck of Cipriani & Werner, also in Pittsburgh.
Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas case GD-17-017731
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com