A federal decide Monday threw out a pair’s lawsuit claiming the luxurious Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay was chargeable for serving them water contaminated with semen.
Decide Araceli Martínez-Olguin in Oakland U.S. District Courtroom cited a “remarkable lack of evidence” that the coast-side lodge bore duty for semen in a water bottle delivered to the couple from the state of Washington, recognized solely as Jane and John Doe.
The pair, married for 25 years, sued The Ritz-Carlton lodge chain in 2023, claiming that in a four-day journey celebrating the spouse’s birthday, a “criminal deviant” worker ejaculated right into a water bottle bearing the Ritz’s brand and introduced it to their room. The spouse wakened within the evening, drank from the bottle, and concluded the water tasted like semen, the lawsuit alleged.
On the time the lawsuit was fired, it had not been confirmed that the bottle was contaminated, however the lodge firm in a later courtroom submitting stated testing confirmed it had contained semen.
The lawsuit accused The Ritz-Carlton — the place rooms began at round $800 an evening on the time — of sexual battery and negligence. The couple have been in search of unspecified damages.
In a courtroom submitting earlier this yr, the Ritz famous that testing confirmed the bottle did comprise semen, however a pattern voluntarily submitted by the accused employee proved “that the semen in the subject water bottle did not belong to the individual who delivered the bottle.”
There was “no evidence that the semen in the subject water bottle belonged to any employee of the Ritz-Carlton,” the submitting added.
Decide Martínez-Olguin in her Monday order granting the lodge’s request to toss the lawsuit wrote that the couple had offered “no evidence whatsoever that the water bottle was contaminated on Ritz-Carlton property.”