Erin Andrews Awarded $55M In A Tort Case
Famous Sports broadcaster Erin Andrews won 55 million dollars in her lawsuit against Michael David Barrett and two companies who filmed her secretly while she stayed at hotel. The two other defendants in the case were Radisson Hotels and Marriott International for invasion of privacy and negligence in relation to this incident.
The incident took place in 2008 when the 37 years old journalist became a victim to voyeurism when she was filmed through peephole of her hotel door by Michael David Barrett, who stayed in a room next to hers. One of the videos was leaked on the Internet in 2009 and went viral. Barret was arrested, fined and served a jail term for two and a half years in 2012.
In October 2015 she filed a suit against Barret and the above named companies for 75 million dollars citing the reasons including invasion of privacy and negligence for this incident as the hotel had given the details of her stay to Barret.
The case commenced in February 2016 and ended in March 2016. After a day of deliberations, the Jury held the stalker to be responsible for 51% of the damage, leaving the two hotel companies to pay about $27 million. Her eyes brimmed with tears after hearing the verdict.
Later, in a statement posted on Twitter, she thanked the court, the jury, and her legal team.
“I’ve been honoured by all the support from victims around the world. Their outreach has helped me be able to stand up and hold accountable those whose job it is to protect everyone’s safely, security and privacy,” she said.
During the hearing of the case she told the Media, “I felt embarrassed, humiliated, mortified because of the video,” she said during a testimony in which she repeatedly broke down.”It broke me apart and the world took it as had managed such video to be viral on the internet”
Miss Andrews’ lawyers alleged that Barrett tried to take all of the blame in an attempt to deprive her of any money from the suit.
