A Utah family’s vacation at Newport Beach’s popular, upscale Marriott Coast Villas Resort has resulted in a pending legal confrontation inside Orange County’s Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse.
Minutes before lunchtime on a sunny, warm Nov. 19, 2016, the Johnsons enjoyed the Pacific Ocean-view resort’s pool and spa area when disaster struck during their Thanksgiving trip to California.
Avery Johnson, 11, became trapped underwater after her hair somehow got stuck in the spa’s drain and, despite frantic attempts, was unable to free herself and rise to the surface for air.
Avery’s younger brother witnessed the scene before alerting his parents who were resting on nearby lounge chairs.
Meanwhile, another guest at the resort dove in the spa and urgently worked to free Avery’s hair but the situation appeared dire.
Having spent about two minutes underwater without oxygen, Avery’s body emerged motionless and blue.
Her parents screamed in horror. “For some amount of time, Avery appeared to be dead as her entire family looked on helplessly,” a federal lawsuit against Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corporation and Arizona’s Paramount Pool and Spa Systems, which manufactured the drain cover.
A bystander who knew CPR techniques worked for minutes on the girl before she began to vomit water and blood.
Thankfully she resumed breathing again, but Avery’s injuries caused hospitalization at Children’s Hospital of Orange County for three days.
Her diagnose: acute hypoxic respiratory failure, near drowning, hypothermia and scalp hematoma.
The Johnson’s seven-count lawsuit, which includes negligence and product liability claims, now sits with U.S. District Court Judge James V. Selna.
Lawyers for Marriott responded to the complaint by alleging the Johnsons have not “been injured or damaged in any way or amount or at all.”
Who does Marriott blame?
Their answer: The parents, who “were careless and negligent” in their “supervision” of their daughter, according to the company’s legal filing on June 13.
“The injuries, loss or damage, if any, of plaintiffs were and are the result of an open, obvious and apparent danger which was known to and recognized by plaintiffs who nevertheless knowingly, willingly, intentionally and voluntarily exposed herself to said danger and assumed the risk of accident, injury and damage,” Robert B. Ryder and Jason D. Hunter, attorneys for Marriott, advised the judge.
On June 15, Selna ordered the parties to participate in pre-trial mediation efforts.
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.