Live! Casino in Philadelphia
PHILADELPHIA – A $3 million verdict against Live! Casino and Hotel Philadelphia will stand in the case of a woman who was beaten during a late-night fight in a bathroom.
The state Superior Court this week affirmed the decision of a Philadelphia jury to award $3,071,958 to plaintiff Shante Jackson, whose lawsuit said she was ambushed while celebrating her birthday by a highly intoxicated woman.
That woman, Natasha Edwards, pulled Jackson’s hair out and assaulted her while she was curled up on the bathroom floor. Video footage relevant to Jackson’s lawsuit, which claimed Live! Casino was negligent in allowing an intoxicated woman to prowl the casino floor against its own policies, was overwritten two weeks after the incident.
“Plaintiff did not allege that Defendant knew or should have known that Edwards had a propensity for violence,” Judge Mary Jane Bowes wrote Feb. 24.
“(S)he contended that it was reasonably foreseeable that this type of harm might result from allowing intoxicated patrons to rom the facility, and that this was established by Defendant’s security director, Mr. McKenna, who testified that ‘intoxicated people do things that intoxicated people do,’ and must be prevented from harming themselves or other people.”
The attack occurred around 2:30 a.m. on April 18, 2022. Jackson had met her cousin earlier for a birthday celebration that included dinner and live music, but when they stopped at a restroom on their way out, Edwards slurred the word ‘boo’ at them and approached them.
“The boos were not the type designed to scare or startle the hearer, but the sort used to express dissatisfaction, as with a sports fan booing a team,” a footnote in the decision says.
Edwards pulled Jackson’s hair out, hit her in the face and knocked her onto a urine-covered floor. Edwards continued kicking and punching Jackson until janitors heard the fight and brought in security.
Edwards and a man who had jumped in were detained before being allowed to leave. Jackson, meanwhile, was given a bandana to cover her head while being escorted to an exit. She headed to the emergency room and was diagnosed with fractures to her nose and orbital bones plus spinal injuries.
Jackson’s lawsuit says she has continuing neck and back pain and fears leaving her home. It also made claims for the embarrassment she felt being walked through the casino bloodied, hairless and covered in urine.
An expert testified her spinal injuries would get worse with age. Sean McKenna, the security director who testified “intoxicated people do things that intoxicated people do,” said the surveillance department was “like a secret society” that did not interact with security.
Staff at the casino were supposedly trained to look for signs of intoxication, like staggering and slurred speech. There was footage of Edwards walking into the casino, but it was unknown when she got there or if she was served alcohol there. She was carrying a bag from one of its restaurants, though.
In the footage, Edwards’ “gait was slightly off” and she was leaning on a friend who appeared to be escorting her, McKenna said. Footage of the crime was saved, but Jackson’s lawyer criticized Live! Casino for overwriting video that could have shown how much Edwards had to drink.
The trial judge told the jury that it could find that evidence would have been unfavorable to Live! Casino. Jackson had contacted the casino in the days after the assault to preserve it, and her lawyer sent notice to save it 23 days after the attack.
