The owner and a group of female patrons of a Florence area gym sued a neighboring insurance agency and the landlord for both businesses Wednesday, alleging a peep hole was used to spy on women using the gym’s restroom.
Josefina Bustes, owner of Rosy’s Gym on Florence Avenue, is joined by 10 other plaintiffs in suing Jay Sang Joon Park, the owner of Wilshire Jay Park Insurance Agency Inc., and F&E Investments & Properties LLC, which owns and leases the building where the businesses are located.
The suit alleges negligence, premises liability, invasion of privacy and both intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress. The suit seeks unspecified damages.
Representatives of the insurance company and the landlords could not be immediately reached.
According to the complaint, on “multiple dates prior to and including May 20, the plaintiffs used the women’s restroom at the gym.”
Park and others not identified in the suit “created an opening, to be used as a peep hole, in the surface of the wall that connected the (insurance company) to the women’s bathroom at the gym,” the suit alleges.
The suit further states that Park and the others inserted a camera device through the wall opening to take photos and video images of the plaintiffs while they were using the restroom.
The women suffered “severe emotional and mental suffering and distress” from being secretly observed in a place where they had a “reasonable expectation of privacy,” the suit states.
F&I Investments, as landlords, had an obligation to “take reasonable steps to secure the property against criminal acts by third parties,” the suit states.
— Wire reports