“We find it is not reasonably probable that had the jury been instructed on comparative negligence, the jurors would have then found [the husband] Michael partially at fault for his wife’s brain injuries,” Justice Eileen Moore of the Fourth District Court of Appeal wrote. “Indeed, it seems inconceivable to us that a jury would somehow find Michael at fault because he was relying on Diamond’s regrettably false information that Priscilla was not in her hotel room.”. Moore was joined in the unpublished opinion by Justices Joanne Motoike and Thomas Delaney.
Arash Homampour, who represented the O’Malleys, called the ruling “a landmark culmination of a nine-year quest for justice and reparation.” “With this affirmation, the O’Malleys can at last access the essential care that has been unjustly withheld throughout this grueling legal marathon,” Homampour of Homampour Law Firm stated via email. Priscilla and Michael O’Malley were also represented by the Biren Law Group and the Ehrlich Law Firm. Attorneys for Diamond Resorts, including Horvitz & Levy partner Dean Bochner and Yoka Smith partner Christopher Faenza, did not return messages Tuesday.
The original trial award was one of the largest personal injury verdicts in the nation in 2022. The events behind it occurred on March 29, 2014, when Riverside resident Priscilla O’Malley checked into the Diamond Resorts Hotel as part of her 59th birthday celebration. Her husband, Michael O’Malley, was scheduled to join her at the hotel the next day. The couple, who typically called each other several times a day, talked by phone at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. After trying unsuccessfully to reach his wife again several times that evening, Michael O’Malley called the hotel’s front desk and asked if someone could check on her. A clerk dispatched a maintenance worker, who would later testify that he entered the mostly dark room, called out for an answer and, hearing nothing, told the clerk that Priscilla O’Malley wasn’t there.
After making more unanswered phone calls throughout the night, Michael O’Malley drove to the resort around 5:15 a.m. on March 30. As a registered guest he was given a room key. He soon found his wife on the unit’s living room floor, unresponsive and gasping for breath. Doctors diagnosed Priscilla O’Malley with a ruptured brain aneurysm and a buildup of fluid on the brain. She now suffers from a form of amnesia that blocks all short-term memory and requires constant care, Homampour said. The O’Malleys sued Diamond Resorts, arguing the company failed to ensure workers were trained under a policy governing welfare checks of guests. The couple originally proposed a $10 million settlement, which the company rejected. After a weekslong trial in 2022 before Orange County Superior Court Judge Frederick Paul Horn, the jury awarded the O’Malleys $60.5 million. Because Diamond Resorts rejected the initial settlement offer, the judge added $30 million in prejudgment interest to the total.
On appeal, attorneys for Diamond Resorts argued, among other things, that the trial court should have excluded testimony from a doctor who said the build up in fluid in O’Malley’s brain was the predominant factor in her injury—one that could have been lessened if she had been found at 10:30 p.m. on March 29 instead of seven hours later. Experts for the hotel argued that the aneurysm itself immediately caused O’Malley’s amnesia. The appellate panel held that the trial judge “properly refused” to insert himself into the jury’s role of choosing between experts with different opinions. Homampour said Tuesday that the total award has now increased to approximately $100 million, given the growth in prejudgment interest.