Erin Andrews awarded $55 million in peephole video trial

NASHVILLE — Sports reporter Erin Andrews scored a huge victory Monday in her crusade for payback over a nude 2008 peephole video, with a jury awarding her $55 million for the gross invasion of privacy pulled off by a stalker at a Nashville hotel.
The jurors took seven hours to decide that the owner and operator of the Nashville Marriott — where Andrews was filmed through a peephole doctored by serial stalker Michael David Barrett — should fork over $26.75 million to Andrews.
They also agreed that Barrett was more culpable, finding him 51 percent at fault and on the hook for $28 million of the award.
Andrews, who had sued for $75 million, shed tears of joy in court and embraced her mother and father as the verdict was announced.
“I love you, Mom,” she told Paula Andrews, who had taken the stand to recount the trauma her daughter endured after the video went viral online.

“I held my breath during the whole thing,” the “Dancing with the Stars” co-host told her lawyers.
Still teary-eyed, Andrews thanked and hugged some of the 12 jurors — and even appeared to give one juror her autograph.
She didn’t address reporters on her way out of court, only posting a statement to Twitter that read: “I would like to thank the Nashville court, the court personnel and the jury for their service.

“The support I’ve received from the people of Nashville has been overwhelming. I would also like to thank my family, friends, and legal team. I’ve been honored by all the support from victims around the world. Their outreach has helped me be able to stand up and hold accountable those whose job it is to protect everyone’s safety, security and privacy,” she wrote.
Andrews’ lawyer, Bruce Broillet, called her a “true American hero.”
Lawyers for the hotel owners — West End Hotel Partners and Windsor Capital Group — expressed their “disappointment” with the verdict but would not say whether they are planning to appeal.
“We’re surprised by the outcome, but again the jury made their decision based upon many factors,” said lawyer Marc Dedman.
As he did throughout the trial, Dedman insisted that Andrews was the “victim of a crime” perpetrated by Barrett, whose actions were unforeseeable.
“We all agreed that Mr. Barrett did that,” he said. “The question was whether the hotel management company and/or the owner of the hotel also was involved in that terrible act that Mr. Barrett committed.”
Dedman said the hotel industry has “changed” as a result of the incident.
Asked if he thought the jury might have been offended by his suggestion that Andrews’ career took off after the naked video went viral, Dedman responded: “That was not our intent.”
“Her career skyrocketed,” he said. “Her income went up. So all the benchmarks that you would look to that would indicate whether someone had a serious mental injury, from our perspective did not exist.”
Andrews was covering a college football game in Nashville when Barrett covertly doctored her peephole, allowing him to record a 4½-minute video of her in the nude with his cellphone’s camera.
After gossip site TMZ declined to buy the footage, Barrett posted it online in 2009, and it went viral.
Andrews maintained the hotel was negligent for confirming for Barrett that she was staying at the hotel and then booking him into the room next to hers.
Lawyers for the hotel said the blame rests solely with her stalker, who pleaded guilty in 2009 and was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
During the seven days of testimony, jurors heard from witnesses including security experts, former hotel employees, a therapist and Andrews’ parents. They also watched the nude video Barrett captured.
Andrews took the stand over two days last week, offering her own tear-filled account of how she learned the video was floating around the Web, and the dark summer days that followed as she holed up in her parents’ room.
“I wanted to be respected, I just wanted to be the girl next door who loved sports,” she said. “Now I’m the girl with the hotel scandal. It’s embarrassing.”
She told jurors that, years later, the naked video still haunts her, and she now goes to extreme lengths to make sure her hotel rooms are free of cameras every time she checks in.
During closing arguments, her lawyer, Broillet, argued that the hotel “enabled” Barrett by confirming that Andrews was staying at the hotel and not informing her that a strange man had requested to stay next to her.
As for damages, the lawyer asked jurors to consider multiplying each person who’s viewed the video — an estimated 16.8 million people — by $1 and adding on more for future views.