An Alabama woman who was widowed by faulty construction at her honeymoon resort found financial justice this April when a jury awarded her $15 million.
Catherine and Lewis Hudgens got married on January 9, 2021, and two days later flew off to the upscale Rainbow Ranch Lodge in Big Sky, Montana. By January 14, Lewis had died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a newly installed water boiler used to heat an outdoor hot tub, located adjacent to their hotel room.
Holes had been drilled in the concrete wall separating the room from the boiler room. The lawsuit alleged — and jurors agreed — that the hotel had not properly vented the boiler room. According to court documents, an exhaust fan in the room “was not operational while the Hudgens stayed in the adjacent guest room.”
Furthermore, the hotel “failed to monitor carbon monoxide levels” through the use of a simple carbon monoxide detector, which might have alerted hotel staff as well as the Hudgens about the deadly gas that was being emitted.
In addition to Lewis’ death, Catherine also experienced carbon monoxide poisoning, which has left her severely disoriented and now chronically ill, jurors found.
Catherine’s final memory with her husband was ordering room service and watching the NCAA college football national championship game on the night they arrived at the Rainbow Ranch.
On January 13 and 14, Catherine’s sister called the hotel front desk to ask that someone check the newlyweds’ room because no one had heard from them. However, hotel staff failed to visit the room for two days as the couple was being poisoned.
“Had Rainbow Ranch staff checked on the Hudgenses as requested, it is likely Lew would be alive and Catharine would not have been injured,” court papers stated.
Rainbow Ranch General Manager Scott Nelson finally visited the room on January 15. No one answered the door when he knocked, so he entered the room and found the couple lying next to one another in bed. Lewis was dead, and Catherine was highly disoriented.
“She hung in there for another 24 hours, maybe even longer after he had died,” said Catherine’s lawyer, Justin P. Stalpes. “She was in the room with him while he was deceased and she didn’t know who she was, where she was, or who he was.”
Defendants in the lawsuit include the Rainbow Ranch as well as several contractors and plumbers who had recently serviced the hot tub heater.
Catherine and Lewis’s estate will receive 65 percent of the payout from the Rainbow Ranch with the remainder paid out by the other parties who had previously agreed to settle.
Catherine testified during the nearly two-week trial, explaining that she had suffered a severe and lasting injury, “emotional distress, mental and physical pain and suffering, loss of established course of life, and loss of earning capacity.”
Her attorney said she will never be the same again. “She lost her husband; she went through one of the most horrific situations you could imagine; and she’s not the same anymore,” Staples said. “They took that away from her.”
