On March 29, 2014, plaintiff Priscilla O’Malley, 59, a business owner, checked into the Diamond Resorts hotel, in Capistrano Beach. Hours later, Ms. O’Malley’s husband, Michael O’Malley, called the hotel’s front desk after 10 p.m., explaining that he had not heard from his wife after having called her cellphone repeatedly since 7 p.m. Mr. O’Malley told the front desk that he was concerned about his wife, as she was not answering her phone, and that he wanted the front desk clerk to send someone to check on her. The front desk clerk eventually agreed to send a maintenance person to check on Ms. O’Malley. The maintenance person knocked on the door of Ms. O’Malley’s hotel room and called out, "Maintenance!" He then opened the door, knocked and called out again, but he never entered into the room. The maintenance person later admitted that the room was dark and that he could not see beyond the entryway. Since no one responded to him and the lights in the room were off, the maintenance person reported to the front desk clerk that Ms. O’Malley was not in her hotel room. The front desk clerk then called Mr. O’Malley back and reported that Ms. O’Malley was not in her room. Mr. O’Malley continued to call his wife’s cellphone and after still not hearing from her, he eventually decided to drive to the hotel to check on her himself. At around 5:30 a.m. on March 30, 2014, Mr. O’Malley entered his wife’s hotel room and found her lying incapacitated on the hotel living room floor. It was determined that Ms. O’Malley had suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm at around 6:30 p.m. the prior evening, causing her to remain incapacitated on the floor for 11 hours until she was discovered by her husband. Mr. O’Malley, acting individually and as his wife’s guardian ad litem, sued the hotel’s management company, Diamond Resorts Management Inc.; the employer of the maintenance person, Hospitality Staffing Solutions, LLC; and several entities associated with the hotel, including Diamond Resorts International, Diamond Resorts Holdings, LLC, Riviera Beach and Spa Resort Vacation Plan Owners Association, Riviera Beach and Spa Resort, and California Riviera Vacations Inc. Mr. O’Malley alleged that the defendants were negligent in their duty of care to ensure the safety of its guests. Specifically, he alleged that the defendants were negligent in undertaking the action of checking on his wife’s safety, causing her further harm. Several of the hotel’s entities were dismissed from the case, and Hospitality Staffing Solutions was granted summary judgment on the "negligent undertaking" theory of liability. The O’Malleys appealed the judgment. The Courts of Appeal noted that "under the ‘negligent undertaking’ theory of liability, where a person who generally lacks a duty of care to another nonetheless undertakes to lend aid to that other, liability may result where the person does not act with reasonable care." It found that "because there were disputed material facts and inferences regarding precisely what [the maintenance person] may have undertaken to do and because the risk that [Ms. O’Malley] may have been lying incapacitated somewhere in the hotel room may have been reasonably foreseeable, a reasonable trier of fact might decide that some portion of the O’Malleys’ were the result of a lack of reasonable care exercised by [the maintenance worker]." Thus, the Courts of Appeal held that the summary judgment on the negligent undertaking theory of liability was improper. According to O’Malley’s counsel, the appellate victory was the guide stone for the subject case’s "negligent undertaking" claims, where one agrees to exercise reasonable care in rendering services to another. As a result of the Courts of Appeal’s decision, the O’Malleys agreed to dismiss the claims against Hospitality Staffing Solutions, if Diamond Resorts Management agrees to treat the maintenance person as if he were an employee of Diamond Resorts Management. The hotel’s management company agreed to be responsible for the case, and the matter proceeded to trial against Diamond Resorts Management only. Plaintiffs’ counsel argued that the hotel was negligent in its failure to complete the undertaking to see if Ms. O’Malley was in the hotel room and okay. Specifically, counsel contended that the hotel had a room/welfare check policy in place that required two people, with one being from management, to go to the room to see if a guest was okay. Thus, plaintiff’s counsel argued that the hotel violated its own policy and procedure by only sending the maintenance person to check on Ms. O’Malley and that as a result, the maintenance person failed to fully enter the room and check for Ms. O’Malley. Plaintiffs’ counsel contended that Diamond Resorts Management had just taken over management of the hotel and that it never trained either the front desk clerk or the maintenance person on the hotel’s policy and procedure regarding welfare checks. Counsel argued that if the maintenance person had turned on the light and entered the room, instead of only observing the dark room from the doorway, Ms. O’Malley would have been discovered at 10:30 p.m., instead of hours later. Additionally, counsel argued that if the management company and maintenance worker had properly done what they were supposed to do, Ms. O’Malley would have been able to obtain emergent medical care seven hours earlier than she did. Diamond Resorts Management’s counsel argued that the maintenance person’s conduct was reasonable and that it was acceptable for the maintenance person to not enter the room to check for Ms. O’Malley because of his consideration for her privacy., Ms. O’Malley suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm at around 6:30 p.m. on March 29, 2014. She was found incapacitated approximately 11 hours later, at around 5:30 a.m. on March 30, 2014. She was transported to a hospital, where it was determined that she has permanent, irreversible brain damage. Plaintiffs’ counsel contended that Ms. O’Malley’s suffers from short-term memory loss in the form of anterograde amnesia, which causes her to be unable to hold new memories for even seconds. Counsel noted that Ms. O’Malley cannot remember anything she is told, even five seconds before, and that Ms. O’Malley requires monitoring every second, as she can leave a location and then not know where she is. The plaintiffs’ medical experts opined that if Ms. O’Malley was found in the hotel room earlier, the processes that caused the loss of her short-term memory, which is controlled by the hippocampi, could have been prevented or, if already started, controlled before permanent damage set in. More specifically, the experts opined that if Ms. O’Malley had been found four hours after the rupture, instead of 11 hours later, and received neurocritical care, then she would have suffered only minor residual problems as a result of the initial bleed from the aneurysm. Plaintiffs’ counsel contended that Ms. O’Malley’s future care would include 24/7, around-the-clock care and additional neurological behavior care during the 16 waking hours. Counsel argued that as a result, the cost of Ms. O’Malley’s future care would total approximately $10 million. Mr. O’Malley, acting on his wife’s behalf, sought recovery for Ms. O’Malley’s future medical costs, and past and future pain and suffering. Since Mr. O’Malley helped to care for his wife for years after the accident, he also sought recovery for his own past and future loss of consortium. The defense’s medical experts opined that the that caused Ms. O’Malley’s memory loss occurred with the initial bleed from the aneurysm and that Ms. O’Malley’s condition would have been the same no matter what time she was found. The experts also opined that nothing that happened after the initial bleed would have altered her short-term memory.