$10 million suit filed over monoxide leak

An

employee of the Holiday Inn Express where 24 people were hospitalized last week after a carbon monoxide leak has filed a $10 million suit in Lake Circuit Court against Holiday Inn International and the local franchise owner.

Roshanda Hinton of Gary, who was working the front desk that night, fell unconscious in the early morning hours of Aug. 11 after succumbing to the potentially fatal gas, according to her lawyer, Kenneth J. Allen. She was one of four people admitted to Methodist Hospitals' Southlake Campus.

Hinton remains under a doctor's care because her asthma worsened as a result of exposure to the gas.

Allen said he anticipates the same parties could face a class action suit on behalf of guests who were lodging at the hotel the night of Aug. 10 when the leak occurred.

"Even though others had been overcome by the gas earlier, including at least one small child, the hotel management failed to conduct any reasonable and necessary inquiry into the source of the problem," Allen said. "As a result, Ms. Hinton and several others nearly died."

Allen has pledged his firm will be willing to contribute any attorney fees he receives from the case if Holiday Inn and White Lodging agree to install carbon monoxide detectors in all of their hotel rooms.

"Just maybe they will do the right thing here," Allen said. "The right thing is not putting carbon monoxide detectors in this hotel alone, but putting them in all of their hotels. While it may be well and good that they have agreed to install detectors in this facility, what about the thousands of other hotel rooms that are subject to this risk? This is not a difficult or expensive device to install.

"Indeed, the very purpose of our request for punitive damages is to compel this chain, and every other hotel operator in Indiana, to install carbon monoxide detectors in all hotels before deaths or injuries occur."

The request is a tall order considering the size of the defendants' holdings.

According to its corporate Web site, Holiday Inn operates or franchises about 1,200 hotels in the Americas; some

243 hotels in Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and 74 hotels in the Asian Pacific.

Of the 1,500 Holiday Inn hotels around the world, about 94 percent are operated by a licensee under a franchise agreement from Bass Hotels & Resorts Franchising Inc. The remainder are either owned or leased by Bass Hotels & Resorts or under management contract or joint venture.

The Merrillville-based White Lodging Services is the franchise operator of the Holiday Inn Express,

8375 Georgia St.

Merrillville. It is the parent company of the Radisson Hotel at Star Plaza and owns 61 other motels in

Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Tennessee, Texas and Utah

, with 30 more under development.

Officials of White Lodging Services could not be reached for comment.

White said his firm has been contacted by at least one guest of the hotel to inquire about a possible lawsuit.

Rich Bird can be reached at bird@howpubs.com or (219) 933-3399.