Ryan Taboada and his family checked into a Roanoke hotel on March 27, 2003. When he went outside to get his luggage, a man shot him eight times and stole his van with his 3-year-old daughter still inside.
This week, a Roanoke judge signed an order dismissing the $3 million lawsuit Taboada filed against the owners of Holiday Inn Express on Gainsboro Road, saying the two sides "have compromised and settled their differences."
In between came a decision by the Supreme Court of Virginia that changed the law governing the obligations of innkeepers to their guests.
Alan Gnapp, lawyer for Daly Seven Inc., the company that owns the hotel, declined to comment about the settlement, as did Taboada's lawyer, S.D. Roberts "Rabbit" Moore.
But Richard Samet, a Richmond defense lawyer who has written a legal article on the Taboada case, said the state supreme court decision so broadened the liability of innkeepers that "I don't see how it could not have had an effect on the mediation and settlement of the case."
Virginia Beach lawyer and legal expert Steven Emmert suggested that the high court's precedent-setting decision could have been influenced by the egregiousness of what happened to Taboada. "It was a horrifying situation," he said.
A Florida businessman, Taboada and his family were in town visiting a cousin. When Derrick W. Smith sprayed him with gunfire, it left him temporarily paralyzed, with two collapsed lungs. His daughter was rescued minutes later unharmed after Smith wrecked while being chased by police.
In his lawsuit against the hotel, filed before Smith received a 76-year prison sentence, Taboada accused Daly Seven of cutting back on security at the hotel despite knowing that it operated in a high-crime area and that guests could be in danger of assault.
Daly Seven argued that the company couldn't be held liable because there was no way for the hotel to know Taboada was going to be attacked, and Roanoke Circuit Court Judge Clifford Weckstein agreed.
Taboada appealed, and in 2006 the Virginia Supreme Court unanimously overturned Weckstein's decision, saying Taboada's lawsuit could go forward. The justices ruled that an innkeeper has a duty to protect the safety of guests akin to that of trains and airplanes toward their passengers, and that Daly Seven should have known Taboada could be in danger because of the number of crimes and incidents that had already taken place on the property.
The Judges in VA are running amuck, I tell you these fucking judges are only looking after themselves. That is why we need to judicial reform in VA. All Judges should be elected, not appointed by their friends in the Legislator. What will be and who will be next to be abuse by these fucking assholes.
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