A guest of a Hilton hotel in Lisle/Naperville has filed a personal injury lawsuit charging the hotel for negligence following the hotel bartender drugging her, gaining access to her hotel room and then raping her, as reported by Chicago’s Naperville Sun, and others.
The lawsuit was filed on February 28 in the U.S. District Court in Chicago. It specifically charges the Hilton hotel management with negligence in relation to the alleged incident on October 27.
The lawsuit seeks over $75,000 in damages.
Jeffrey S. Deutschman is the attorney for the victim. He states that his client had traveled from her home in Virginia to Chicago to attend a wedding. She obtained a room at the Hilton, had a meal and alcoholic beverages – served to her by a Hilton staff bartender – in the hotel bar and restaurant.
The bartender, 31, of either Aurora or Naperville, is no longer employed by the hotel.
The suit claims that at some point during her meal, the bartender added GHB – a date rape drug – to one of her cocktails and she began to feel ill. She decided to return to her room, and, per the suit, passed out.
Sometime after that, the suit alleges that the bartender went to the front desk of the hotel to ask – and receive – the woman’s room key. The suit further charges that the staff at the desk neither asked why he wanted, or needed, the woman’s room key before relinquishing it.
The bartender then allegedly entered the woman’s hotel room, and, while she was passed out, “engaged in unwanted and inappropriate sexual contact with (her) that amounted to assault, battery and rape.”
Deutschman said that his client reported the incident to Lisle police and was treated in an area hospital.
The suit alleges that Fireside West LLC, doing business as the Hilton Lisle/Naperville, allowed its key to be used for the commission of a crime; failed to secure the key; failed to provide adequate security; failed to dispatch security guards, staff or other personnel during the sexual assault; and failed to adequately train security guards and staff.
The suit further stated, in regards to the bartender, that hotel management should have been aware that he was the “subject of many complaints for sexual harassment, unwanted touching of the guests and obnoxious behavior during work hours in full view of ... customers and security cameras” and instead let him stay on in their employ “and act in an inappropriate fashion despite the knowledge that this behavior was ongoing and a disturbance to the guests of the hotel.”
According to Deutschman the bartender worked at the Hilton hotel for ten years prior to the lawsuit. Deutschman added, “This lawsuit has very little to do with the bartender. This is a case just against the hotel.”
It was the act of relinquishing a guest’s room key to an employee that put the hotel in a position of “negligence” to which Deutschman said was “wrong” and “actionable.”
If you have been harmed due to the negligence of another, you may have grounds for a personal injury lawsuit. Contact a personal injury lawyer from our directory to guide you.