The Royalton Chic hotel could not have foreseen that its operations would be substantial factors in the cause of Elijah Snow’s death, the Mexican property’s lawyers argued.

Snow’s wife, with whom the Arlington firefighter had in July 2021 traveled to Cancun for a vacation, was in a far better position than the hotel’s employees to assess his degree of intoxication and ability to function, the lawyers attempted to persuade a jury in a civil trial this week.

Over about 10 hours on his first day at the hotel, Elijah Snow drank heavily. Jamie Snow believed he had the capacity to return to their room without her, and she retired there alone.

The Royalton Chic could not reasonably be expected to be responsible for Elijah Snow once he reached the property of a hotel next door, Royalton lawyers argued. Elijah walked beyond the Royalton premises to the property of the Sunset Royal Beach Hotel, according to the theory of the lawyers who represent the corporation that operates the Royalton. In the morning, a groundskeeper found Elijah suspended in a window, dead of asphyxia. His upper body was on the outside of a wall; his feet did not touch the floor on the interior. One pathologist left open the possibility of a manner of death other than accident, the determination of two other pathologists.

The Royalton’s arguments appear to have fallen flat with the jury in Tarrant County that on Tuesday returned a verdict of $31.2 million in compensatory damages for Jamie Snow and the couple’s two children, girls who are now 10 and 8.

The jury appears to have been persuaded by the plaintiffs’ theory of liability in the lawsuit that RCM Hotel, Royalton Chic’s operator, and Blue Diamond Hotels and Resorts Inc., the owner of its brand, were negligent when the corporations failed to follow their protocol on the response to a guest who is reported missing, as Elijah Snow was, and failed to carry out security procedures and have in use adequate surveillance cameras. The jury found that Elijah’s negligence also proximately caused his death.

Jury assigns responsibility for Elijah Snow’s death

Royalton employees were lethargic in response to Jamie Snow’s report that she woke about 1 a.m. in the couple’s room and found that her husband was absent, lead plaintiffs’ lawyer Wes Bearden suggested. At 7:24 a.m., Elijah’s body was found lodged in a window on the next-door property of the Sunset Royal Beach Hotel.

At the close of a five-day trial, the jury in the 17th District Court assigned the percentage of responsibility for contributing to the death at 65% to RCM Hotel, 25% to Blue Diamond and 10% to Elijah Snow.

Bearden suggested in his closing argument that $35 million in damages was appropriate.

How bad? How long? How permanent? were questions that Bearden suggested the jury consider to guide the panel’s deliberation on Elijah’s pain and his family’s loss of companionship and mental anguish.

The jury reached its unanimous verdict in about three hours.

Judge Melody Wilkinson is presiding in the case and will, within 30 days of the verdict, rule on the judgment, which will include setting interest. Jamie Snow, an educator who lives in Kennedale, filed the lawsuit in 2022.

CM Hotel and Blue Diamond are foreign corporations. The plaintiffs produced evidence showing that the companies solicit Texas residents to go to their resort, which allowed the trial to be held in Tarrant County.

Bearden represents Jamie Snow with attorney Darren Wolf.

Pathologists say death was likely an accident

Elijah’s death was caused by traumatic asphyxia, a Mexican pathologist found.

Dr. Jeffrey Barnard, a pathologist who was hired by the plaintiffs, concluded that Elijah’s death was caused by positional asphyxia and that alcohol played a significant role. Barnard’s cause determination is similar to the opinion of the Mexican pathologist.

Barnard prepared a report that does not refer to the manner of death. On cross-examination, Barnard testified that he was comfortable rendering the opinion that the death’s manner was accidental or undetermined.

“I cannot, however, rule out that he was put there in an incapacitated state by other individuals,” Barnard wrote in his report. Barnard reviewed autopsy and scene photos and a translated original autopsy report.

Dr. Satish Chundru, a pathologist who was hired by the defendants, testified that there is no evidence to support the undetermined manner classification that Dr. Barnard cannot exclude. Bruises on Elijah’s body are consistent with injuries that were caused by the windowsill, Chundru said.

“All the evidence in this case supports an accident,” Chundru testified.

James Kuritzkes and Mike Burke are among the lawyers who represent the defendants. Elijah entered the window feet-first, could not get out of his position and became trapped, Kuritzkes asserted in his opening statement. The window is in a room in which there are showers.

‘We’ve lost so much,’ wife testifies

A retired economics professor hired by the plaintiffs testified that Elijah’s relatives suffered, because of his death, an economic loss of $3,045,299 in the expert’s projection of earnings and benefits. Elijah was 35 when he died.

Jamie Snow took the witness stand and recalled paying cash to Cancun police in order to view photos of her husband’s body and to receive a report that revealed to her where his body was found. Once she returned to Texas, Jamie handed each of her girls a stuffed animal.

“I told them that their dad wasn’t coming home,” she said.

Jamie tearfully recounted her husband’s value to their family.

“We’ve lost so much,” she said.

Bearden asked Jamie what she wanted.

“What I want I’ll never have,” Jamie told the jury, suggesting that precisely what happened to her husband cannot be known.

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