$177 Million Verdict Against Hyatt After Security Guard Assaults Sleeping Hotel Guest, Affirmed on Appeal

Shannon Dugan, a sheriff's deputy from New Jersey, traveled to St. Louis in April 2016 for a crime scene investigation seminar. She stayed at the Hyatt Regency St. Louis at The Arch. On the night of April 19, after she had returned to her ninth floor room and gone to sleep, a colleague who could not reach her called the hotel and asked for a wellness check.

Hotel security guard David White responded to that call. He used his electronic master key to enter Dugan's room, saw her sleeping, and left. He came back alone about an hour later, let himself in again, and sexually assaulted her.

Dugan sued Hyatt Corporation in the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis on claims of negligent hiring, negligent supervision, and negligent training of its security staff. Her lawyers presented evidence that Hyatt had failed to conduct a thorough background check before putting White in a position of trust with master key access to guest rooms. His history included prior arrests connected to suspected sexual misconduct. The trial team also showed that the hotel violated its own policy requiring two officers to perform wellness checks, which left White free to enter a sleeping guest's room by himself.

On October 14, 2022, the jury returned a verdict of $177 million: $28 million in compensatory damages and $149 million in punitive damages against Hyatt. Scott Bethune, Wes Shumate, and Kevin Buchanan of Davis, Bethune & Jones tried the case for Dugan, along with co-counsel Rich McLeod of The McLeod Law Firm in Kansas City.

Hyatt appealed. The company argued that the trial court should not have admitted evidence of White's prior arrests and misconduct investigations, that the jury instructions on negligent supervision were defective, and that the record could not support the punitive award. On December 3, 2024, a special division of the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, sitting as a panel of Chief Judge Thomas C. Clark II and Judges James M. Dowd and Renee Hardin-Tammons, rejected every point and affirmed the judgment in full. The court held that the evidence of White's history was properly admitted, the instructions were sound, and the punitive damages rested on clear and convincing evidence that Hyatt acted with conscious disregard for the safety of its guests.

The affirmance left the entire $177 million verdict intact, including the $149 million punitive component, one of the largest awards ever entered against a hotel operator in a case arising from an assault by its own security employee.