Erin Andrews' lawyer blames hotel for nude video in opening statement
NASHVILLE — Seven words could have prevented TV personality Erin Andrews from the humiliation of nude videos going viral on the Internet, attorney Randall Kinnard told a jury during Andrews’ civil trial in Nashville on Tuesday.
Those words, Kinnard said: “I’m sorry, we can’t tell you that.”
Kinnard said employees at the Nashville Marriott at Vanderbilt University did not use those words, nor common sense, when a man called in September 2008 and asked in which room Andrews was staying. Instead, the attorney said, the hotel staff told Michael David Barrett that Andrews was staying in Room 1051, leading to Barrett booking the room next door and filming a 4½-minute video of Andrews naked through a rigged peephole.
During the next two weeks, a jury is expected to hear testimony and decide whether that video harmed Andrews, and if so, who was responsible and how much they should pay to the former ESPN reporter who now works for FOX Sports and co-hosts “Dancing With The Stars” on ABC.
Attorneys for the hotel and Andrews gave opening statements in the trial on Tuesday, and the first witnesses were former hotel employees who described policies regarding identifying guests. Andrews walked into Nashville Circuit Judge Hamilton Gayden’s courtroom through a wave of camera flashes and past video cameras from local and national media.
Kinnard says the hotel owner, West End Hotel Partners, and the management company, Windsor Capital Group, are at fault for their negligence that allowed Barrett to follow Andrews, book a room next to her and film her. Kinnard practices at Kinnard, Clayton and Beveridge law firm in Nashville.
“What could a man calling a hotel asking to be placed next to a woman mean?” Kinnard said. “It could be an ex-husband, it could be an ex-boyfriend, somebody who wants to hurt that woman. It could be somebody no telling what he wants to do.”
The lawsuit also names Barrett, who lives in Oregon, as a defendant. Barrett was sentenced to 30 months in prison in March 2011 for stalking Andrews, according to federal court records in California.
An attorney for the Nashville hotel focused his opening statement on Barrett, saying it was the man’s criminal action and deception that was to blame.
“Every lawsuit is a story,” Marc Dedman of Spicer Rudstrom in Nashville told the jurors. “You’re going to get a story from this side, and you get to decide what happened. This is a story about a serial stalker.”
PHOTOS: ERIN ANDREWS TRIAL
Dedman said Barrett filmed three videos of Andrews at hotels around the country in a nine-month span in 2008.
His operation was the same at each, according to Dedman: Barrett would call the hotel and say he needed to confirm a reservation, and when asked for a number or a name, he would say, “Jeff, Scott and Erin Andrews.”
At the Nashville hotel on Sept. 4, 2008, Dedman said Barrett arrived but his room was not ready. Dedman said Barrett went to the hotel restaurant and then snuck to an interior phone to call and ask in which room Andrews was staying. He went up to the room and then returned to ask to book the room next door, 1049.
The rooms both open into a corner of a hallway at the West End hotel and share a wall. Barrett rigged a peephole on Andrews’ door while she was out getting ready to cover a Vanderbilt University football game, then filmed her through it on his cellphone, Kinnard said.
Dedman said Barrett was an insurance executive who traveled 200 nights a year. He filmed the video and tried to sell it to TMZ, a celebrity news and gossip website, but they wouldn’t buy, Dedman said.
So Barrett posted it online, where it was watched millions of times, Kinnard said.
One issue that jurors will consider — and that the lawyers disagree on — is how much Andrews was impacted by the video going viral.
Dedman said in his opening statement that psychologists disagree whether Andrews suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, and that she has thrived in her career since the peephole incident. Kinnard said Andrews was left in horror, shame and humiliation when she discovered the video, which continues to be watched online.
“It happens, it continues to happen, it happens today, it will never stop,” the lawyer said. “This is not like a broken arm that heals.”
Kinnard urged the jury not to be swayed by a possible defense argument that Andrews was not truly harmed by the video.
“They cannot step into her shoes and understand the humiliation that can come from the violation of a standard of care,” Kinnard said. “It’s not in their DNA to understand it.”
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