United States 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Reports - NORDMANN v. NATIONAL HOTEL COMPANY, 425 F.2d ... Page 1 of 7

NORDMANN v. NATIONAL HOTEL COMPANY, 425 F.2d 1103 (5th Cir. 1970) Mary LeBlanc NORDMANN, wife of/and Ervin A. Nordmann, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. NATIONAL HOTEL COMPANY, d/b/a The Jung Hotel et al., Defendants-Appellants. No. 26894. United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. April 19, 1970. Page 1104 Ashton R. Hardy, New Orleans, La., for defendants-appellants. Phillip A. Wittmann, David L. Stone, New Orleans, La., for plaintiffs-appellees. Before RIVES, BELL and DYER, Circuit Judges. RIVES, Circuit Judge: Mr. and Mrs. Nordmann sued the National Hotel Company for damages which resulted from a robbery and assault committed upon them in a Jung Hotel room in New Orleans between 12:10 A.M. and 1:10 A.M. on October 18, 1965. The Nordmanns, accompanied by a friend and business associate, William Mixon, registered into the hotel as paying guests the previous afternoon. That evening, with several other friends, they attended a ball in the hotel ballroom. The hotel contains some twelve hundred guest rooms, and there were some twelve to fourteen hundred people at the ball. Shortly after midnight, when the Nordmanns left the ball and started up to their room, they entered a self-serving, automatic type elevator. They were followed by the man who later robbed and assaulted them. When they left the elevator they did not notice that this man followed until Mr. Nordmann put the key in the door. At that time the man thrust a gun in Nordmann's back and pushed them into the room and on the bed. He took such money as Nordmann had in his wallet, fifty dollars, forced him to lie face down on the bed, had Mrs. Nordmann get a razor blade from the bathroom and cut a section of a venetian blind cord with which he tied Nordmann's hands behind his back. He announced that