An end-of-summer outing among hotelier Andre Balazs’ Shelter Island employees ended in a boozy boat crash that left one worker seriously injured, according to a $4 million lawsuit.
Lindsay Myers had gone out with fellow Sunset Beach hotel managers Nick Iattoni and Carl Hubbard to Wolffer Kitchen in Sag Harbor on Sept. 21 when the party decided to boat back to their Shelter Island workplace, her lawyer said.
Myers, 33, was a manager last summer at the boutique hotel where an in-season room can go for $560 a night.
Iattoni was at the helm of his friend’s small fishing boat, despite having “consumed excessive alcoholic beverages,” she claims in court papers.
The passengers were soon flung out of the boat when Iattoni smashed it into a Shelter Island dock, according to the Manhattan Federal Court filing.
Myers hit the ground and broke two bones in her leg and has been unable to walk normally since, said her lawyer Jordan Merson, who alleges Balazs’ employees tried to cover up the accident.
“They brought her home,” the attorney said. “She was essentially on a couch. She went right to the emergency room the next morning. She woke up, she couldn’t walk.”
Myers had surgery to insert a rod into her mangled leg, but cannot get around without crutches or a walker, said Merson, who added that his client hasn’t worked since the crash and has since moved to South Carolina.
Iattoni “was driving erratically and too fast,” according to the suit filed against Iattoni, Hubbard, boat owner Paul White and Andre Balazs Properties.
Balazs, the sometime boyfriend of actress Uma Thurman, recently stepped down as chairman of the Standard hotel chain and is believed to be worth about $450 million.
Lattoni, Hubbard and White could not be reached. Andre Balazs Properties didn’t return a message.
Original story found here.
