A visiting businesswoman from Maryland who said she spent additional money to stay at a downtown Los Angeles Hilton hotel in 2021 in hopes of being safe, but instead found her life “drastically changed” by a woman screaming and lighting fires in the establishment, has dropped her suit against the hotel’s property managers.
Michele LeNoir’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit against Crestline Hotels & Resorts LLC alleged premises liability, negligence and negligent infliction of emotional distress. On Friday, her attorneys filed a request for dismissal of the suit with Judge Anne Hwang. The court papers did not state whether a settlement was reached or if LeNoir was not pursuing the case for other reasons.
In their court papers filed in November 2022, two months after the case was filed, Crestline attorneys contended that LeNoir’s damages were caused by her own “willful, wanton, and reckless misconduct.”
LeNoir, now 55, of Hyattsville, Maryland, a Washington D.C. suburb, checked into a room at the Hilton Checkers Los Angeles on Grand Avenue in October 2021 while on a business trip, according to the suit, which additionally stated that she was nervous about being in downtown Los Angeles because she was aware of an increase in homeless people and crime in the area at the time.
“Due to her concerns, (LeNoir) decided to pay a bit more and book the room at the Hilton Checkers based on the fact that Hilton is a well-known name brand which she thought would be reliable and safe,” the suit stated. “Unfortunately, she could not have been more wrong.”
Lenoir’s stay “turned into a nightmare,” according to the suit, which states she was awakened around 1:30 a.m. on Oct. 28 by a fire alarm and instructions for guests to evacuate.
“When (LeNoir) opened her door to try to leave her room as instructed, she immediately saw an unknown woman screaming in the halls of the hotel,” according to the suit, which further states that the woman was approaching the plaintiff when a security guard told LeNoir to close her door.
LeNoir heard a loud noise sounding like a struggle and later found out that a friend staying with her was involved, the suit stated.
“Plaintiff had no idea who the woman was or how she had gained access to the hotel,” according to the complaint, which also stated that the female intruder had started multiple fires in an adjoining room, endangering everyone at the hotel.
LeNoir left her room and ran down a stairway to the lobby, where the front door was open, the suit stated.
“The hotel employee at the front desk was behind the counter on the phone and seemed terrified,” the suit stated.
LeNoir later found out that the fire alarm could not be heard in the upper levels of the hotel, so those guests did not know what was unfolding, the suit states. A Los Angeles Fire Department report stated that the fire could have spread throughout the building, according to the suit.
Police and firefighters arrived “after what seemed like an eternity” and LeNoir did her best to tell them what occurred while “still in a state of shock,” the suit stated.
Hotel security and the general manager told LeNoir that hotel policy was to leave the front door unlocked and she also found out that the security guards were unarmed, according to her suit.
“Following the incident, (LeNoir) sat in the hotel lobby for hours, unable to return to her room because of the live arson investigation,” the suit stated.
LeNoir and her friend were given another room at about 4:30 a.m. and they insisted that a security guard stay outside their door, the suit stated.
“(LeNoir) and her friend stayed together the remaining few hours until their car arrived to take them to the airport because they were too terrified to be separated,” the suit stated.
LeNoir regularly travels for business reasons and her life has been “drastically changed” by the incident, which has “destroyed her sense of security and affected her well-being,” including her ability to sleep and work, according to the suit.