Plaintiff Shannon Dugan’s life will never be the same since she was sexually assaulted by a security guard employed at the Hyatt Regency St. Louis at the Arch where she was a guest in 2016. Dugan was aggressively groped by the employee while she slept, according to her attorney.
Originally, from New Jersey, Dugan is a sheriff’s deputy who was in town at the time attending a crime investigation seminar presented by Washington University at the hotel.
“Whether you're a child or an adult, something like this violates your boundaries,” said Dugan’s attorney Scott Bethune. “It violates the sense of control you have over your body and your trust. Without those three things, it affects your everyday functioning.”
On Oct. 14, a St. Louis jury awarded Dugan $177 million, which is the largest plaintiff’s victory in 2022 to date, according to media reports.
“Based upon what happened here, there are blatant violations of their policies, not only with respect to the hiring but with respect to the security procedures,” Bethune told the St. Louis Record. “That's what the jury saw. They were violating their own rules and they admitted that these violations led to this attack and that these violations led to this sexual predator being hired.”
The complaint alleged negligence in hiring, training, and supervising. Although the Hyatt Hotel did have a policy in place to screen prospective security guards, they violated their policies with respect to hiring the assailant, David A. White, who pleaded guilty to first-degree burglary and misdemeanor sexual abuse.
"He had a record of multiple arrests relating to sexual assault, sodomy, and sexual deviance," Bethune added. "He served time until he made bail so that got him time served plus five years probation. He was also required to register on the sex offender registry list."
Human resources did not verify his five years of previous employment nor did they obtain two favorable references, according to Bethune.
“There was even a spot for the human resources director to sign off on waiving the two favorable references, which was left blank, and with respect to the background check on criminal records, they limited that to seven years and convictions only but yet their policies relating to security officers said that security officers need to have additional scrutiny,” he said.
As previously reported in Missouri Lawyers Media, $28 million of the $177 million is allocated for compensatory damages and $149 million for punitive damages.
Bethune declined to disclose attorneys fees except to say, "We do this on contingency."