A Tennessee woman who thought her children were safe watching the Disney Channel when she left them in a motel room has won $85,000 in damages from the motel for failing to prevent them from accessing a hardcore porn channel.

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury found the Value Lodge motel of Artesia liable for the psychological trauma the two daughters, aged 8 and 9, of Edwina McCombs suffered as a result of seeing what her lawyers described as “hardcore pornography with close-up images of people engaged in various homosexual sexual acts.”

McCombs's witnesses included a forensic psychologist who testified that the children would need another two years of therapy and a hotel management expert who said the motel was negligent in not using a “menu” system to avert unexpected exposure to the adult channel on its in-room cable TV.

The jury's award, consisting of $65,000 in economic damages and $20,000 for emotional distress, may be the first of its kind against a hotel or motel. “If hotels don’t have lock-outs that prevent young children from being involuntarily subjected to pornography, they will be liable,” said plaintiff's co-counsel Eliot F. Krieger.

After checking into the Value Lodge, McCombs, who was vacationing in Southern California, put the Disney Channel on for her daughters while she used the bathroom. As they tried to switch to “Nickelodeon or whatever,” Krieger told Adult Video News, they found the porn on Channel 12.

“We don't know how long they were watching, but for some period of time, because mom hears a knock on the door and one of the kids says, 'Mom, there's something terribly wrong,'” Krieger said.

The motel claimed to have posted signs informing guests they could have the adult channel turned off by the front desk, but plaintiff's expert Alan Snyder told the jury he had never been to a family-type motel that offered direct access to porn.

The psychologist, Dr. Michael Perrotti of Yorba Linda, Calif., testified that a child’s mind is like the hard drive of a computer and that pornographic images, once implanted, are difficult to remove.

That testimony sounds like a bit of a stretch –- according to AVN, there are no peer-reviewed studies of the effects on young children of viewing sexually explicit material. Some online commenters on the case, moreover, have questioned McCombs's parenting.

“Whatever happened to personal and parental responsibility?” asked one. “I would never leave my kids with full access to a hotel TV without checking what was on all channels and making sure the desk knew no porn was allowed in my room for the duration of my stay.”

But if there is a standard of care for in-room cable, the Value Lodge certainly seems to have fallen below it. And the defense was willing to settle the case for $50,000.

“It's just $30,000 more. We're OK,” defense attorney Max C. Chiang said of the verdict.

By Matthew Heller
10/13/07