29-May-15 – A federal magistrate judge has granted a request by an Air India pilot to compel the owner and operator of Wyndham Grand Riverfront Hotel to produce documents that show its net worth.

Pankul Mathur is suing Hospitality Properties Trust and Wyndham Hotel Management, Inc., over a robbery he claims happened in 2013 when the Wacker Drive hotel was named Hotel 71.

The 46-year-old Boeing 777 captain, in Chicago on a layover on April 15, 2013, says he woke to a loud banging on his door. When he opened the door, a large African-American woman barged into his room, took $500 from his wallet next to the bed, and on her way out told an employee of the hotel she was a prostitute and Mathur had refused to pay her.

He says after he was robbed, hotel staff refused to help him. The woman is seen on security video leaving the hotel but she has never been located.

Mathur (left) has requested from both defendants financial statements and tax returns from 2013, saying the information is needed so that a jury can determine how much in punitive damages to award.

The financial data, says an attorney for Mathur, would also show the hotel could have afforded to install a door chain on Mathur’s room, or paid a hotel employee to check key cards of strangers entering the hotel at night.

Attorneys for the hotel objected to releasing the confidential information, saying any defendant’s financial condition is irrelevant in a negligence action.

The hotel disputes Mathur’s claim that a housekeeping employee was working with his assailant.

“There is no evidence of plaintiff’s conspiracy theory,” writes Ann MacDonald (right), one of the hotel’s attorneys, “that a housekeeper conspired in the alleged robbery, let alone evidence that anyone at Wyndham had knowledge of the alleged conspiracy.”

Judge Geraldine Brown granted the request on May 15. The documents were due on May 22. A status hearing is scheduled for June 1.