ATLANTA Two separate lawsuits have been filed in connection with the death of a guest who fell out of 10th floor window at W Atlanta Midtown last month.
LaShawna Marleece Threatt’s father, Maurice Threatt, is suing on behalf of his daughter’s estate. Her mother, Sharon Traylor, is suing on behalf of her granddaughter, LaShawna Threatt’s 15-year-old daughter. Both lawsuits, which are pending in Georgia state court, claim that the hotel knew the glass was defective and improperly installed.
Both lawsuits seek unspecified damages and a jury trial.
According to the father’s lawsuit, the glass in a window in room 1012 had recently been replaced and it was “not properly tempered for use as an outside wall window.” The victim and a friend, Cierra Williams, were apparently horseplaying near the window when the glass shattered and the two fell out. Williams was critically injured but is expected to recover.
Hotel manager Michael O’Donohue declined to comment on the lawsuits but says consultants had performed a “comprehensive structural review” of the building in 2008, Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. “At no time during these inspections did the W Atlanta Midtown receive any reports noting concern about the safety or security of its windows or window system structure,” O’Donohue said.
The guestroom in question has a metal frame window system with six panes of glass separated by two floor-to-ceiling vertical metal support frames, with a full-length horizontal metal support frame is about three feet off the floor. “During this incident, a single glass pane was partially broken,” O’Donohue says. “This pane was located below the horizontal metal support frame in the lower right-hand corner of the window system. No other glass panes or frames were cracked or damaged and the entire window system remains completely intact and firmly affixed to the interior room wall and the concrete exterior building wall.”