$34.33 Million Verdict for Ruth's Chris Workers Poisoned by Carbon Monoxide at Pier Five Hotel

On the morning of February 2, 2008, firefighters responding to reports of illness at the Ruth's Chris Steakhouse inside Pier Five Hotel in downtown Baltimore measured carbon monoxide at nearly 700 parts per million, seven times the 100 ppm threshold that requires evacuation. Responding crews later described it as the highest reading they had seen in their careers. What made the reading especially damaging was what the evidence at trial would show: the leak had been building for weeks, and the hotel's carbon monoxide detection system had been disabled on multiple occasions.

Twenty restaurant workers were exposed during that period. Their injuries were not temporary. Plaintiffs alleged that the prolonged poisoning caused permanent brain damage, manifesting as chronic attention deficits, memory loss, and personality changes that continued years after the incident. Three spouses brought additional claims for loss of consortium.

Attorneys William H. Murphy Jr. and Richard Falcon, along with co-counsel Mary McNamara-Koch and A. Donald C. Discepolo, sued both the hotel's owner, TPOB Pier Five LLC, and its operator, MJ Harbor Hotel LLC (formerly Meyer Jabara Hotels LLC). The legal theories went beyond ordinary negligence. The jury was asked to find the defendants liable for public nuisance and, against the operator, battery, on the basis that the continued operation of the hotel with a known, disabled safety system amounted to an intentional act.

The trial ran 13 weeks before Judge Audrey J.S. Carrion in Baltimore City Circuit Court. After two days of deliberations, the six-person jury returned a collective verdict of $34.33 million, with nearly all of it going to the 20 injured workers and roughly a half-million dollars to the three spouses. The jury found both the owner and operator liable for negligence and public nuisance and held the operator additionally liable for battery.

No post-verdict reduction or appellate reversal appears in available records. The defendants in the underlying 2010 case were represented by Y. Kevin Williams of Weinberg Wheeler Hudgins Gunn and Dial.