A former employee of a luxury Miami Beach hotel who says her billionaire boss invited her to join him in a “ménâge à trois” cannot sue him for infliction of emotional distress, a judge has ruled, finding his alleged behavior, while “obnoxious,” was not “objectively outrageous.”

The Casa Casuarina

Christelle Hamon worked as a front desk receptionist on the night shift at the swanky Casa Casuarina, where rooms run up to $5,000 a night. In a lawsuit filed in February, she alleges the hotel's owner, telecom mogul Peter Loftin, propositioned her after summoning her to his suite, where she found a naked woman performing oral sex on him.

The woman “turned her head towards Ms. Hamon, smiled and shook her buttocks at Ms. Hamon,” the complaint says. “Loftin asked Ms. Hamon, 'do you wanna touch?'”

Hamon sued Loftin for sexual harassment and intentional infliction of emotional distress, arguing that his conduct was “deplorable and obscene.” But Chief U.S. District Judge Federico A. Moreno last month granted the hotel's motion to dismiss the emotional distress claim because Hamon had not shown the behavior was “so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency.”

“Obviously, Loftin's conduct ... if true, was crude, obnoxious, and inappropriate,” he said in his decision. “It is critical, however, to emphasize that there was no physical touching involved and that this was a one-time occurrence lasting seconds.”

Moreno also noted that the alleged harassment “occurred after hours in a hotel where the employer also lived” rather than in a “more traditional workplace environment” such as an office or factory. “This factor affects whether Loftin's conduct in his bedroom suite can be considered objectively outrageous.”

A former owner of the Casa Casuarina, fashion designer Gianni Versace, was shot dead on its front steps by spree killer Andrew Cunanan in 1997. Versace's sister sold the property for $19 million to Loftin, who considered using it only for entertaining his own guests before deciding to convert it into a hotel.

Hamon alleges she went to Loftin's suite early on the morning of March 13, 2009 to deliver silverware and napkins. The door was unlocked and, when she entered the suite, “Loftin summoned her to bring the items into the bedroom.”

In the suite, the suit says, “Loftin was naked on the bed drinking a glass of wine, and a naked black woman was performing oral sex on him.” Hamon asked where she could leave the silverware but Loftin ignored her, instead saying, “Hey Christelle, doesn't she look good?”

After she declined his invitation to touch the woman, he allegedly “asked her whether she wanted to watch Loftin and the woman have sexual intercourse.”

“Completely shocked,” Hamon put the silverware on a table and left the bedroom, which was separated by a wall from the rest of the suite. Loftin continued to speak to her while she was behind the wall, allegedly warning her not to tell anyone what had happened.

Hamon did report the incident to the general manager, the suit says, “but he did nothing about it” and she quit two weeks later because she had become “so fearful and nervous that she could no longer perform her job.”

In another recent case of hotel harassment, a former manager at the Hilton Minneapolis claimed she walked in on an orgy at a company sales conference. Deborah Smith agreed to a settlement of her lawsuit in February.

Hamon's case is potentially more serious because, unlike Smith, she allegedly received an invitation to participate in sexual activity. Loftin attempted “to persuade her to join in what is commonly referred to as a 'ménage a trios' [sic],” she says in a brief.

But in dismissing the emotional distress claim, Judge Moreno emphasized that for most of the three minutes Hamon was allegedly in her boss's suite, she was behind a wall and “could not see the improper conduct. Ms. Hamon was basically induced into seeing Loftin nude and involved in a sex act in his suite for a matter of seconds.”

Moreno barely mentioned the alleged “ménâge à trois” invitation, saying only that Loftin "briefly encouraged [Hamon] to join in."

"There is no doubt,” he concluded,

that the allegations of Loftin's conduct on the night of March 13, 2009 present an offensive and inappropriate way of behaving in the workplace toward an employee. However, the conduct is not so "atrocious" or "utterly intolerable in a civilized community" to be considered outrageous ...

In an earlier decision, Moreno allowed Hamon to proceed with her sexual harassment claims. To find Loftin liable on those claims, she will have to show the harassment was severe and pervasive enough to constitute a hostile work environment.

By Matthew Heller
7/10/10