Langham Hotels Pacific Corp. will pay $320,000 to settle a civil consumer protection lawsuit that alleged the company price-gouged victims of the January 2025 wildfires and other guests who stayed at its Pasadena hotel during the wildfires and resulting state of emergency, the District Attorney’s Office announced Monday.
Langham — which cooperated with the investigation and did not admit liability — also must pay restitution and issue refunds to eligible guests who stayed at the hotel between Jan. 7, 2025, and March 29, 2026, for all amounts paid above the maximum allowable hotel rate, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
The total refund amount is estimated at nearly $217,000 between January 2025 and April 2025 alone, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Any refund amounts that remain undeliverable after reasonable efforts to locate and refund all eligible hotel guests are required to be paid to the county’s Department of Consumer and Business Affairs.
The lawsuit, filed by the District Attorney’s Office and Los Angeles County Counsel’s Office, alleged that Langham violated the state’s anti-price-gouging law by charging its Pasadena hotel guests more than 10% above the hotel’s regular rates as advertised immediately prior to the proclamation or declaration of emergency.
Under the settlement, Langham must also modify any automated, algorithmic or other pricing systems to ensure that prices are not unlawfully increased during a declared state of emergency, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a proclamation of a state of emergency in Los Angeles and Ventura counties on Jan. 7, 2025, the day the wildfires broke out, triggering California’s price-gouging protections that were extended through July 1, 2025, and the county Board of Supervisors also passed a series of motions extending price-gouging protections for hotel guests in Los Angeles County until March 29, 2026, according to the District Attorney’s Office.