Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 16, 1990 TAG: 9004160101
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A5 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ARLINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The case raises the specter of AIDS and legal questions about a hotel's responsibility for guests' safety.
Jordan River Baah, now 4, found the fluid-coated needle and a vial containing a trace of crack cocaine on the floor of their room at the Imperial Inn in Arlington in November 1988, his mother said.
Brenda Baah, 29, said she emerged from the bathroom to find the child's lips bloody and the syringe in his fist. The child told her he had stuck the needle in his mouth, Baah said.
"He was screaming. He kept saying, `Mommy, my lips hurt,' " Baah said.
The Baahs, who live in Arlington, have filed a $1 million lawsuit against the hotel's parent company, charging that the hotel was negligent and that the incident has caused emotional damage to the family.
Legal experts agreed in interviews last week the case will test a Virginia statute that holds hotels to a higher standard of safety than other businesses.
Unlike a shop or a public street, a hotel is regarded as a sort of safe haven where the proprietor has greater responsibility for his customers, the Baahs' attorney and other Virginia lawyers said.
In court filings, the attorney for Imperial Hotels Inc. has contended the hotel has strict cleanliness policies for its rooms and is not at fault for Jordan's injury. The attorney, Richard Lewis, did not return telephone calls last week.
Trial is set for April 26 in Arlington County Circuit Court.
If the jury sides with the Baah family, it could beef up the existing negligence law, the Baahs' attorney, Paul Warren, said.
A psychiatrist who examined Jordan several times likely will testify the child suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, a phenomenon common in people exposed to extremely traumatic events.
In court filings, Dr. Lee Haller, a private forensic psychiatrist in Rockville, Md., cited nightmares, bed-wetting, inability to sleep alone and other behavior as evidence the boy is still profoundly affected by the event.
"My hunch is that it's going to be hard to prevail on that theory in Virginia," University of Virginia law professor Kenneth Abraham said. Abraham said the fear of getting AIDS will be difficult for a jury to classify as an injury.
Doctors at Arlington Hospital, where an ambulance took the child the night of the mishap, told the Baahs no tests could tell them conclusively whether the boy was exposed to AIDS.
Subsequent tests have found no sign of the deadly disease, court papers show. Jordan is tested every six months.
Baah's husband, a native of Ghana, is bewildered by the events and rarely talks about what happened, she said. In addition to Jordan's alleged psychological problems, his older brother has become moody and reacts violently to any mention of drugs, she said.
The Baah lawsuit also alleges the hotel's front desk initially did nothing when the toddler's reported the incident, then asked her not to call the police.
"The management offered no apologies, nothing, just another room," she said.
Baah called police, who examined the child and the room. An officer who came to the hotel will likely testify at the trial.
The family moved into the Imperial Inn for about two weeks when their apartment building was damaged by fire, Baah said. The American Red Cross housed about 10 families there while the building was repaired.
by CNB