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Parents Of Tourist Found Dead in Hotel Water Tank File Wrongful Death Lawsuit
The parents of Elisa Lam, the young woman whose body was found inside a water tank atop a Downtown Los Angeles hotel, have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the hotel's owners.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of David and Yinna Lam of Vancouver, Canada, agains the owners of the Cecil Hotel, according to City News Service.The Lams are seeing unspecified damages as well as compensation for the burial costs of their daughter.
The lawsuit claims that the Cecil Hotel operators had an obligation to make the premises safe for Lam and "inspect and seek out hazards in the hotel that presented an unreasonable risk of danger to (Lam) and other hotel guests."
Lam, 21, had also been a guest at the hotel during her visit from her home in Vancouver. The college student had last been seen in the hotel January 31, and was reported missing by her concerned family, who said their normally-communicative daughter had stopped contacting them.
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Nearly three weeks after she was last seen, guests and residents at the hotel complained of low water pressure, which resulted in the dispatch of a maintenance man to the roof, where he took a look inside the four water cisterns there.
Lam's body was discovered deceased inside one tank that was about three-fourths full of water. After toxicology tests were conducted, the official cause of death was ruled an accidental drowning, with the young woman's bipolar disorder as a contributing factor.
Shortly after the discovery of Lam's body, other guests at the hotel also filed lawsuits against the hotel for being made to brush their teeth, drink, and shower in "corpse water."
The hotel has not commented on the just-filed wrongful death suit.
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