In January 2014, Stacy Belle spent the night at a Red Roof Inn in Prince George’s County, Maryland. She woke up with an itching sensation, and discovered welts across her upper body.
When Belle flipped her pillow over, she was disgusted by a cluster of bed bugs crawling along the bed.
She quickly sought out Daniel Whitney, a local “bed bug attorney,” and began preparing a lawsuit against the hotel chain. In her lawsuit, Belle claimed that Red Roof Inn was aware of the infestation in her room but took no action in treating it.
A jury awarded Belle $100,000 in damages. According to Whitney, this settlement is the largest payment in a hotel bed bug case in the state of Maryland.
But Red Roof Inn wasn’t pleased by the verdict…
A spokesperson said that the hotel chain disagreed with the ruling, and that it would be exercising legal action in an effort to overturn the settlement.
The details about this case were reported in the Washington Post on September 18th, 2015.
