Hotel Management • November 2015 • Up Front

By David Eisen editor-in-chief Running a hotel looks like hard work. I myself have never worked in one, though I did toil in a Rock Bottom Brewery before being “let go” for “allegedly” dropping a vat of fry grease that just so happened to seep down through the floor and rain on some rather pricey carpeting in the Oriental rug shop below.
But, gee, being responsible for entire hotels with multiple rooms, restaurants, bars, not to mention entire staffs—it’s enough to make you not want to be a hotel owner or operator (that’s until you see how well hotels are faring nowadays and the stacks of cash they are hauling in, but I digress). See, I don’t do so well with anxiety. I once hoofed it back almost a mile to my apartment thinking I had left the coffee pot on—even though it has an automatic turn-off mechanism. You’ve got to be a cool customer to own and run a hotel, because you never know what might happen in it. Cue segue. Marriott International recently reached 1 million hotel rooms either open or under development. In one of them, back in 2008, Erin Andrews, then a reporter with ESPN, was secretly videotaped through peepholes while undressing by Michael David Barrett at the Nashville Marriott at Vanderbilt University. Barrett also videotaped Andrews at the Radisson Airport Hotel in Milwaukee. That tape didn’t make it out into the public sphere; the Marriott one did.
Barrett was subsequently arrested and Andrews filed lawsuits against the hotels and Barrett. The most egregious claim being that employees at the Marriott not only willingly gave Barrett information as to when Andrews would be staying at the hotel, but also then gave him the room adjacent to her’s. In October, it was revealed that she is seeking $75 million in damages from Marriott. The figure itself—though lofty—isn’t what gave me pause; it’s that she is suing Marriott International. Marriott, being the huge corporation it is, no doubt has a gaggle of lawyers that work around the clock to safeguard the company against legal torment. I'm not a lawyer, but what understanding of law I do have leads me to believe that Marriott won’t be found liable and the franchisee and/or operator of the hotel would be. Then again, if Marriott is the operator of the hotel and hirer, then it may just be culpable. Again, I’m not a lawyer, so I consulted one: Hotel Management’s resident legal expert Judge Karen Morris. She told me Andrews’ lawyer likely sued both the franchisee and the franchisor “because that’s what lawyers do.” (She said that last part with a hint of sarcasm.) “But the law is quite clear that a franchisor is not liable for the negligent acts of franchisees, absent a situation where the franchisor has taken over the operations of the franchisee.” But wait, Karen, what about the recent National Labor Relations Board ruling that companies can be held responsible for labor violations committed by their contractors? “The NLRB ruling created some excitement but has since been mostly discredited. On occasion a court here or there seems willing to deviate somewhat from the rule and thereby generates discussion,” she said. “The rule, however, seems always to win out: franchisor not liable.” Ever the eager reporter, I phoned Marriott and was told that the hotel in question is, in fact, run as a franchise. I’ll let the courts settle this one, but it looks like Marriott could be in the clear. Nonetheless, this case shows what happens when you hire the wrong people. Look, there are unscrupulous people out there, and I don’t want to hazard a guess as to how Barrett gained such access to Andrews, but I have my ideas (and they are colored green). The hotel industry succeeds and fails on the backs of its employees. That is why hiring the right people, the first time, is crucial. You can’t predict when an employee will go rogue, but my advice is to consult their social media channels at the time of a hiring decision and to even monitor their social media thereafter if they are hired. You can find out a lot about an employee—legally—through platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Know who you are hiring; it could save you down the road. ■HM deisen@questex.com