The suit relies in part on a theory of hotel negligence based on prior criminal acts at the hotel.
The Nashville Scene covered the filing:
“A lawsuit filed in Davidson County Circuit Court this week describes the Stadium Inn as a “hotbed of criminal activity,” citing a a litany of disturbances, four suspicious deaths and two alleged rapes.
The suit was filed on behalf of an unidentified Kentucky woman who stayed at the run-down hotel, which is tucked in between Nissan Stadium and the interstate, on Feb. 12, 2017. She claims she misplaced her room key and asked maintenance worker James Hurt to let her in.
He did, and then, she says, she went to sleep with the door locked. Later that night, she says, she woke up with Hurt on top of her, grabbing at her hair and pulling her head back. She says he then raped her.
Hurt was arrested and charged in the alleged rape on Dec. 20, 2017, and is scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 15. His attorney did not respond to a request for comment, and a message left for management at the Stadium Inn has not yet been returned.
The suit, filed on behalf of the Kentucky woman by Nashville attorney Chris Smith of David Randolph Smith & Associates, accuses the Stadium Inn’s owner of negligence and seeks compensatory and punitive damages. The filing details a long list of calls to police about incidents at the hotel between February 2015 and February 2017, which include another alleged rape in 2015.
The Metro Nashville Police Department confirmed to the Scene that they have an open investigation into the 2015 incident but declined to provide further details.
The lurid scenes suggested by the lawsuit, and the police records it cites, make for an uneasy contrast with the hotel’s use as a signifier of gritty-but-charming old Nashville. Nashville musicians — Jonny Fritz, Caitlin Rose and Lambchop among them — have turned to the grungy hotel as a backdrop for music videos. It was also the site of a father-son wrestling circuit profiled by the Scene in 2010.”
