Jury Adds $5 Million in Punitive Damages to Tailhook Verdict

A federal jury Monday ordered the Las Vegas Hilton and its parent company to pay former Navy Lt. Paula Coughlin $5 million in punitive damages, bringing her total award to $6.7 million.

The Las Vegas Hilton and Hilton Hotels Corp. were found guilty on Friday of failing to provide adequate security at the 1991 Tailhook convention, where Coughlin and more than 80 other women said they were sexually assaulted by drunken Navy and Marine aviators. Coughlin settled for an undisclosed amount with the Tailhook Assn. before the trial against the hotel started.

The four-man, four-woman jury awarded her $1.7 million in compensatory damages after deliberating for one day and returned Monday afternoon to begin deliberating the punitive damage award. They handed up their decision less than one hour after hearing testimony about the company’s assets and arguments from both sides.

“I think justice was served,” Coughlin said afterward, speaking with reporters for the first time since the trial began Sept. 12. “This sends a message that you can’t tolerate abusing women even for making money.”

Coughlin testified earlier that she was trapped in the hotel’s third-floor hallway on the Saturday night of the convention by a group of men who shoved their hands down her bra and tried to reach up her skirt and pull off her underwear.

Coughlin’s attorney urged jurors to issue a multimillion-dollar award “to get the (Hilton) shareholders’ attention” in order to prevent future assaults or to get some company executives removed.

“If you listen to Mr. (Eugene) Wait’s comments, they’re still equating the damage done to Paula Coughlin and her life to a broken lamp,” Dennis Schoville, one of Coughlin’s attorneys, said of the lead Hilton attorney.

Wait said Monday that the Hilton had been punished enough by all of the negative publicity surrounding the women’s allegations and by the $1.7-million compensatory award.

“We believe that the message has already found its way to the Las Vegas Hilton,” he said. “Your verdict punished the Hilton.”

Wait tried to discourage the jury from giving Coughlin a punitive damage award by telling them they’d be hurting other Americans and their community.

“Americans and others have invested their money in this company. These are the people that you’ll affect. That’s really what you’re talking about,” he said.

Financial statements introduced in court Monday showed the net worth of Hilton Hotel Corp. at $1.089 billion and the Las Vegas Hilton at $274 million.

Coughlin, who has been unemployed since leaving the Navy in June, said she hopes now to “slip into obscurity.”

“I want to paint my house,” she said. “I just want to go home.”