A well-known Ohio personal injury lawyer has been forced to endure at least three brain surgeries after walking into a glass bathroom door while in Miami Beach for a conference, according to a federal lawsuit reviewed by The Independent.
In a complaint filed June 28, attorney Arthur Elk, 78, claims staff at the W South Beach were “shocked” by the amount of blood in the room when they arrived to take an injury report.
The 2023 incident, which has not previously been reported, “inflicted lasting and profound physical and emotional harm” upon Elk that continues to this day, according to the complaint.
It accuses the Marriott-owned chain of, among other things, negligence and “inadequate maintenance,” and says the “pain and suffering endured during those agonizing moments, and in the years since, have left [Elk] permanently scarred both physically and mentally.”
W Hotel Management, the lead defendant in the suit, denied any wrongdoing or liability for Elk’s injuries. A filing by the chain in response to the allegations blamed the entire episode on Elk, maintaining that he was the negligent one for “failing to take reasonable safety precautions to prevent colliding with the door leading to the toilet in the bathroom.”
A W spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
On November 8, 2023, Elk arrived in Miami and checked into the W South Beach, where he booked a room for a multi-day industry confab, states his complaint, which was initially filed last year in Miami-Dade Circuit Court before being removed to Miami federal court on Sunday.
Once Elk – who was once the youngest prosecuting attorney ever elected in the state of Ohio, before entering private practice – received his room key, he went upstairs to relax, the complaint adds. Later that evening, Elk met a group of colleagues for dinner, then returned to the W to rest up for the conference events scheduled for the upcoming weekend, the complaint continues.
“Later that evening, while asleep in his hotel room, Plaintiff awoke about 3:00 AM and needed to use the bathroom,” the complaint says.
The toilet in the room where Elk was staying is enclosed in its own space, separated from the bathroom’s sink area, by a floor-to-ceiling glass door, according to a photo included in the complaint.
The hinges on the glass door are supposed to close gently on its own when someone leaves the toilet room, the complaint states.
“Unfortunately, due to the defect and inadequate maintenance, the glass door… remained open at an approximate 45-degree angle,” it alleges.
As he approached the toilet room, Elk “reached his hand out and moved forward to open the transparent, frameless, glass door believing it was closed, as it should have been,” the complaint says, describing the door’s angle as having “made it invisible,” and thus, “a hazard.”
But since the door was in fact ajar, Elk’s head “struck the sharp edge of the glass door,” according to the complaint.
Elk “felt the pain immediately but figured it would subside, not realizing the gravity of his injuries,” the complaint states. “[Elk] went back to bed, only to awaken hours later to discover his pillows and bed linens saturated with blood, along with his head and eye severely bruised.”
He immediately contacted the hotel desk to report his injury, according to the complaint, and when a staff member entered the room, “they were shocked by the sight of the blood on the bed.”
“Since that time, [Elk] has undergone three brain surgeries and continues to receive treatment as a direct result of the [W’s]’ negligence,” the complaint says.
The W has a duty to its guests to ensure a safe stay, and, to that end, should have ensured Elk “was able to safely and adequately access the bathroom through the glass door without being subjected to any dangers or hazards,” the complaint argues.
Further, it contends, cleaning staff entered the room daily, and the hotel “knew or reasonably should have known” that the glass door was not closing properly.
Serious injuries involving glass doors have been at the center of numerous other headline-making lawsuits.
In 2024, a New York City jury awarded $35 million to a 36-year-old banker after she became permanently brain damaged when a glass lobby door in Midtown Manhattan shattered on her head. As a result, the woman testified in court, she lost her sense of smell and taste and forgot how to speak Spanish, a language she once spoke fluently, the New York Post reported.
That same year, a guest staying at the Four Points by Sheraton in Orlando sued after she said a glass shower door shattered and left her with deep lacerations and shards of glass embedded in her body. The lawsuit claimed hotel employees recounted tales of similar incidents in the past, in which shower doors had suddenly exploded without warning, and said the Sheraton “breached its duty of care by failing to ensure the safety of its glass shower doors, communicate potential dangers to guests, and maintain proper safety standards.”
In 2018, a Nevada woman sued after a glass barn door separating the bedroom from the living room in a suite at the Hilton Garden Inn in Sioux Falls, Iowa, suddenly became detached and shattered on the floor as it pulled her down with it, allegedly causing “significant injuries” and “substantial medical bills,” according to the Argus Leader.
Three years prior, a passenger aboard a cruise ship operated by the Holland America Line was awarded $21.5 million for injuries he suffered when a sliding glass door aboard the vessel snapped shut without warning and struck him in the head, The Seattle Times reported. The 61-year-old victim was left with memory loss, vertigo, and seizures as a result, according to the outlet.
Elk’s complaint says he has suffered scarring and disfigurement, mental pain and anguish, and loss of capacity for the enjoyment of life, and has been forced to expend large sums on medical care. His wife of 42 years is a co-plaintiff in the suit, claiming she has “suffer[ed] the loss of her husband’s consortium, companionship, comfort, society, love, affections and services.”
