We Stand With You After What Happened in That Hotel Bathroom
We know why you are reading this page.
You went out one night in the Juneau Town neighborhood of downtown Milwaukee — Valentine’s Day 2026 — and you met a man at a bar. He talked his way into taking you to the Pfister Hotel, a place he had no business bringing a stranger he just met. Once you were inside a hotel bathroom, he turned on you. Your head hit a sink with enough force to scramble your memory of the rest of that night. The next thing you remember clearly is telling a friend the next morning what happened.
Then, weeks later, he did the unthinkable again. He tracked you down at your workplace — the place where you earn your living, the place that should have been safe — and groped you in front of witnesses. When the police were called, he walked out before they arrived. According to the charging papers, his parting words to you were, “Thank you for not judging my kinks.”
You are not imagining what was done to you. What happened to you is a textbook sequence: the grooming, the isolated location, the head trauma, the memory loss, the second attack after the first. None of that is your fault. And under Wisconsin law, it is not just the man who did it who can be held to answer. The hotel that let him lead a stranger into a private bathroom — the historic Pfister, on the corner of Wisconsin Avenue — can be on the hook too. The bar that overserved him before he did it can be too. Our job is to make every defendant who played a role in putting you in that bathroom answer for it.
We do not get paid unless we win your case. Your consultation is free, confidential, and available 24/7 by calling 1-888-ATTY-911.
The Head Injury Is the Center of This Case
When a man’s head is slammed against a sink with enough force to make the victim lose memory of the rest of the night, that is not just a battery. That is a traumatic brain injury mechanism, and the law treats it that way — even when the brain scan taken in the emergency room reads “normal.”
Here is what the medicine says. A traumatic brain injury happens in two waves. The first is the mechanical blow itself — the brain shifts violently inside the skull and the nerve fibers stretch and tear. The second wave starts immediately after, over the next hours and days, as the injured brain swells, blood flow drops, and damaged neurons die off in a cascade. The single best scan to detect this kind of injury — especially in a sexual assault victim who arrives shaken and may not be able to articulate her symptoms — is a diffusion tensor MRI (DTI), not the standard CT that almost every emergency room runs first. A standard CT is normal in roughly 90 percent of mild traumatic brain injuries. A normal CT does not mean the brain is fine. It means the wrong test was used.
If you were examined at a Milwaukee emergency room after the assault, you almost certainly received a CT. The CT report probably said “no acute intracranial abnormality.” That single sentence is the most dangerous phrase in brain-injury medicine, because it is the sentence the insurance company will wave in front of a jury to argue you were not really hurt. We will work with you to obtain a full DTI scan and a complete neuropsychological evaluation, and we will line up the right medical expert to explain to a jury — in plain language — why a normal CT does not rule out the kind of injury a head slammed against a porcelain sink can cause.
Memory loss after a blow to the head is not a sign you are confused or exaggerating. It is a clinical symptom. The hippocampus, the part of the brain that records new memory, is among the first structures to be damaged by acceleration-deceleration injury. A victim who cannot remember the moments after her head was slammed against a sink is describing textbook hippocampal injury, not lying. We will put a treating physician or a forensic neuropsychologist on the stand to say so.
A head injury of this kind can mean weeks of post-concussion symptoms — headaches, dizziness, nausea, light sensitivity, sleep disruption, difficulty concentrating, mood changes — and for a meaningful percentage of patients, those symptoms do not fully resolve. They become a permanent part of the survivor’s daily life. We will build the medical proof of every one of those symptoms and the cost of every treatment.
If you are suffering the head-injury aftermath, please call us at 1-888-ATTY-911 before you sign anything the hospital or any insurance company puts in front of you.
The Pfister Hotel Can Be Sued Under Wisconsin Law
The headline fight in this case is not against the man — it is against the hotel that let him lead a stranger into a private bathroom and committed the assault there.
Wisconsin law gives injured victims more than one path to hold a hotel responsible, and we will pursue every one of them.
The Wisconsin Safe Place Statute
Wisconsin Statute § 101.11 imposes a duty on the owners of public buildings — and that term is read broadly to include hotels — to construct and maintain the premises to make them as safe as the nature of the premises reasonably permits. The Pfister is one of the most historic, high-end hotels in the state. The legal duty owed to its guests is not a minimum-floor duty; it is a duty calibrated to the nature of a luxury hotel, which includes a heightened expectation of safety in private areas like guest-room bathrooms. We will argue that the Pfister failed that duty by failing to monitor, staff, or supervise the bathroom area in a way that would have prevented or interrupted an assault, and that the failure to do so allowed the assault to occur in a place where the victim was completely isolated.
“Each employer shall furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees.” — adapted from the federal General Duty Clause principle that Wisconsin courts look to when construing the Wisconsin Safe Place Statute.
Common-Law Negligent Security
Wisconsin common law independently requires a hotel to exercise reasonable care to protect invitees — including hotel guests and their visitors — from foreseeable criminal conduct. Hotels are not insurers of guest safety, but they are required to anticipate the kinds of crimes that are reasonably foreseeable on their premises and to take reasonable steps to prevent them. Where a hotel has a history of incident reports involving guest-on-guest violence, drug-facilitated sexual assault, or stranger-on-stranger assault in common areas or guest-room corridors, that history is evidence the danger was foreseeable. Where staffing and surveillance are inadequate to monitor restrooms, lounges, or corridors during peak hours, that is a breach of the duty. We will subpoena the Pfister’s incident logs, its security staffing schedules, its surveillance video, and its key-card access records to find out what was known and what was done.
The CCTV and Key-Card Clocks
This is where the case can be won or lost on timing. Hotel surveillance video is the single most perishable piece of evidence in a negligent-security case. The industry norm is a rolling over-write cycle of about thirty days, sometimes less. There is no Wisconsin statute that requires a hotel to retain surveillance footage for any fixed period. If we do not send a litigation-hold letter to the Pfister demanding preservation of every camera covering the lobby, the elevator banks, the guest-room corridor, and any restroom-adjacent common areas in the first days after you call us, the video that would have shown the man leading a stranger he just met into a guest bathroom may be legally erased before anyone ever asks for it.
We send that letter the day you retain us. We send it to the hotel’s general counsel, to the Marcus Corporation — the publicly traded parent that owns the Pfister — and to the third-party video-storage vendor if there is one. We demand preservation of every related record, including:
- The Pfister’s surveillance video from the date of the assault, the date of the workplace stalking, and every date in between
- The key-card and electronic door-lock access logs for the guest floor and the specific room
- The guest folio for the man — including the name on the reservation, how the room was paid for, whether the room was paid for in cash, and any prior stay history at the property
- The housekeeping and service logs for the floor, including any “do not disturb” notations
- The incident reports and any internal communications about prior incidents
- The employee schedules and security-staff deployment logs for the dates in question
We also send a spoliation demand — a written notice that destruction of evidence after receipt of the demand will expose the hotel to a jury instruction that they can assume the missing evidence would have hurt the hotel. Wisconsin courts have the power to issue that adverse-inference instruction when a defendant destroys evidence after notice. A hotel that has been put on notice and still lets the video cycle out faces that instruction in front of a jury.
The Marcus Corporation Shell Game
The Pfister is owned by The Marcus Corporation (NYSE: MCS), a publicly traded hospitality and entertainment company headquartered in Milwaukee. Marcus operates hotels, movie theaters, restaurants, and other entertainment venues across the country. The legal entity that owns and operates the Pfister may not be “Marcus Corporation” the parent — it may be a Marcus subsidiary set up specifically to own hotel real estate, or to operate the hotel, or both. The structure is designed to wall off liability: if you sue the operating LLC and the operating LLC has no assets, the verdict collects nothing. The money sits at the parent.
We do not let the structure win. We will identify the parent, the real-estate-owning entity, the operating company, and any management company, and we will pursue each of them under Wisconsin law. Wisconsin courts pierce the corporate veil when a parent uses a subsidiary as a mere alter ego, and we will make that argument with the corporate records in hand. We will also use the discovery process to find out whether Marcus carries excess insurance above the Pfister’s primary coverage, and where the coverage tower actually sits.
Wisconsin’s Modified Comparative Negligence Rule
Wisconsin follows a modified comparative negligence rule with a 51% bar. That means a plaintiff’s recovery is reduced by her own percentage of fault, and if she is found to be 51% or more at fault, she recovers nothing. This rule applies to ordinary negligence claims — and it is the rule we will see in any negligent-security case against the Pfister and any dram-shop case against the bar.
Here is what that means in practical terms. The defense will almost certainly try to argue that the victim put herself in danger by going to a hotel room with a man she had just met. That argument is repugnant, but it is real, and we have to be ready for it. Our response is straightforward: a person has the right to go to a hotel with a stranger, and the right to use a public bathroom, without being sexually assaulted. No amount of “putting herself in that position” reduces the hotel’s duty to keep its premises safe or the bar’s duty not to overserve a visibly drunk patron. The Wisconsin comparative-fault rule was not written to let hotels and bars escape responsibility for their own failures just because the victim was an adult who made an adult choice to go out for a drink.
For the intentional tort claims against William Schultz personally, comparative negligence does not apply at all. An intentional tortfeasor cannot shift blame to the victim for being victimized. The full measure of damages runs against him.
The Evidence We Will Lock Down Before It Disappears
Time is the enemy of evidence in a case like this. Here is what exists, who holds it, and how fast it can legally disappear:
Pfister Hotel surveillance video. The single most important piece of evidence. Routinely overwritten on a rolling 30-day loop. Wisconsin law does not require retention. We send the preservation letter the day you call us.
Pfister Hotel key-card and door-lock access logs. Electronic record of every card swipe on the floor and the room. Retained on a vendor-specific cycle that is often short. We demand preservation immediately.
Pfister guest folio and reservation records. How the man paid, what name he used, whether he had stayed at the Pfister before. Retained per the hotel’s own policy. We demand preservation immediately.
Pfister housekeeping and incident logs. The same-day records of the floor and the room. The hotel’s own policy controls retention. We demand preservation immediately.
Pfister security-staff deployment and incident reports. The hotel’s own record of who was working and what they saw. The hotel’s own policy controls retention. We demand preservation immediately.
Juneau Town bar surveillance, tab, and bartender-identification records. The bar’s own records of the man that night. Wisconsin’s dram-shop discovery is robust. We send a preservation letter the same week.
The salon workplace records. The booking record that shows the man made a haircut appointment, the staff who saw him there, the police call record, the time he arrived and the time he left. These records are controlled by the salon and are stable in the short term. We preserve them quickly.
Milwaukee Police Department records. The CAD (computer-aided dispatch) records, the responding officers’ reports, the witness statements, and the 911 call audio. Wisconsin’s public-records law gives us a clear path to obtain these.
The criminal case file. Once the criminal case is in discovery, the defendant’s own statements, the forensic exam (SANE) records if one was performed, and any forensic evidence collected from the hotel bathroom will become part of the public court file. We monitor the criminal docket closely and obtain everything we are entitled to.
The defendant’s 2021 UW-Whitewater campus assault citation. His prior bad act is admissible in a civil case for limited purposes — to show knowledge, intent, motive, or a pattern of conduct. His 2021 citation for assaulting a campus bartender is exactly the kind of evidence that explains why the Pfister’s security failures mattered and why the salon’s failure to screen him mattered. We obtain his full prior record.
The sooner you call us, the sooner the preservation letter goes out. We do not wait. The day you retain us, the evidence clock stops.
What Your Case Is Worth
We are often asked early in a case what the case is worth. We do not give a number until we have a full medical picture, a complete damages analysis, and a clear picture of the available coverage. What we can say now is this:
The published case-value range for a hotel negligent-security sexual assault case in this part of the country runs from a low of approximately $500,000 to a high of approximately $3,500,000, with the wide range driven by the severity of the physical injury, the permanence of the psychological harm, the strength of the notice evidence against the hotel, the presence or absence of punitive-damages exposure, and the size of the available insurance coverage. A head-injury case with documented TBI on DTI imaging and neuropsychological testing, a workplace-stalking claim against the same defendant, a clear punitive-damages case, and a deep insurance tower can move a case into the upper end of that range or above it.
A confidential settlement before litigation may produce a different number than a jury verdict, and a jury verdict is never guaranteed. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. What we can guarantee is that we will pursue the full value of your case against every available defendant, with every available theory, and with the expert team required to prove it.
The two largest drivers of value in this case are the head injury and the workplace stalking. The head injury turns what would otherwise be a sexual-assault-only case into a much larger traumatic-brain-injury case with lifetime medical, vocational, and life-care implications. The workplace stalking adds a separate claim with separate witnesses, separate punitive-damages exposure, and a third-party negligent-hiring case against the salon. The combination is what puts this case into the upper range.
We will retain the right experts — a forensic neuropsychologist, a life-care planner, a forensic economist — to put a precise dollar figure on every category of loss, and we will present that figure to the defense with the documentation to back it up.
The Team That Will Handle Your Case
When you call Attorney911, you reach Ralph P. Manginello and Lupe Peña. Ralph has been a trial lawyer for more than 27 years, with courtroom experience in state and federal court. He is licensed in Texas and admitted to practice in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, and he spent his early career as a journalist before he became a lawyer — which means he knows how to find the story in the record and tell it to a jury. Ralph’s practice is built on the kind of cases where the deck is stacked against the individual and the only way to even the odds is to outwork the other side.
Lupe Peña is a former insurance-defense attorney who spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the very rooms where claims like yours are valued, contested, and sometimes denied. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. Lupe knows how adjusters set reserves, how defense lawyers select their expert witnesses, how surveillance is done, and how the delay-and-discount playbook works from the inside. He now uses that knowledge for injured clients, not against them.
We work on contingency. We don’t get paid unless we win your case. Your consultation is free. There is no charge to ask us whether you have a case, and there is no obligation when you call. We staff our phones 24/7. Spanish-speaking staff are available. Call 1-888-ATTY-911 today.
If you would like to learn more about our firm and our practice areas, visit our homepage, read about Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña, or browse our practice areas and our contact page. We also have a library of free educational videos — including our Ultimate Guide to Brain Injury Lawsuits — that walks you through how these cases work and what to expect.
How the Case Moves From Here
Once you retain us, the case moves in phases. We will walk you through every step, but here is the roadmap.
Phase 1 — Preservation and Intake. The first week, we send the preservation letters to the Pfister, the Marcus Corporation, the Juneau Town bar, the salon, the Milwaukee Police Department, and any other identified record-holder. We obtain your medical records and the criminal complaint. We interview you in detail. We retain a forensic neuropsychologist for a baseline evaluation.
Phase 2 — Medical and Damages Development. Over the first three to six months, we obtain a full DTI scan, a complete neuropsychological workup, a life-care plan for any long-term impairment, a vocational assessment if the head injury has affected your ability to work, and a forensic-economic analysis of lifetime lost earnings and care costs.
Phase 3 — Pre-Suit Investigation and Demand. Once the medical picture is reasonably mature, we send a detailed pre-suit demand letter to every defendant, with the evidence, the expert opinions, and the damages model. Most hotel and bar cases resolve in this phase, often through a confidential settlement that includes significant compensation for the victim and, sometimes, institutional changes at the property.
Phase 4 — Litigation. If the defense does not pay a fair settlement, we file suit in Milwaukee County Circuit Court or, if diversity jurisdiction supports it, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. Discovery follows. Depositions are taken. The case either settles during discovery or proceeds to trial.
Phase 5 — Resolution. Trial, arbitration, mediated settlement, or pre-trial settlement. We will be ready for trial from day one — that is what moves a case to a fair number, because the defense knows we are willing to try it.
We will be with you at every step. We will not disappear after the preservation letter. We will not hand your case off to a junior associate and never call you back. Ralph and Lupe work your case personally, and you will have our cell numbers.
Take the First Step Today
The criminal case is moving. The man is charged, he is in custody on a $25,000 cash bond, and the court has put on the record that the facts are “extremely concerning.” That is the system working as it should. But the criminal case does not pay your medical bills, does not fund the therapy you need, does not replace the wages you have lost and will lose, and does not change the conditions at the Pfister or the bar that made the assault possible in the first place. That is what the civil case does.
The first call is free. The first call is confidential. The first call is the moment the evidence clock stops and the preservation letters go out. You do not have to know whether you want to sue today. You only have to know that you do not want to do this alone, and that you do not want to wait until the hotel has erased the video.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 now. Hablamos Español. We are here 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Contact Attorney911 today to schedule your free consultation with Ralph Manginello or Lupe Peña. Learn more about our brain injury practice, our wrongful death practice, and our full range of personal injury services. If you have been injured in any kind of serious accident, we are ready to fight for you.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.