A lawsuit filed this month claims that a Brunswick hotel knowingly let guests swim in a pool that had failed state inspections for more than a year, ultimately causing an infectious disease outbreak that sickened 23 people.
The civil lawsuit against Giri Hotel Management, LLC and Giri Brunswick, LLC was filed on Jan. 8 in Cumberland County Superior Court. The six named plaintiffs are individuals or couples suing for themselves and on behalf of minor children.
According to the lawsuit, a state pool inspector in January 2022 notified the two Giri entities of eight violations at their Best Western Plus Brunswick hotel, including no functioning disinfectant feeder and no required chlorine testing or records. By March 2023, the defendants had not remediated any of the violations, according to the lawsuit.
Giri Hotel Management did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
At least 23 people, most of them children, who swam in the pool on March 4 and 5, 2023, became seriously ill after swimming in the pool, state and federal investigators concluded, according to a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited in the lawsuit.
Lab testing confirmed the infections were caused by pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacterium that can be deadly to humans but can be killed through the basic sanitation and chlorination that Maine law requires for public pools, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit notes that, based on CDC data spanning nearly six decades, pseudomonas aeruginosa infections from hotel pools typically number 19 per year across the U.S. — fewer than the single 2023 Brunswick outbreak.
Giri Hotels is based in Quincy, Massachusetts, and owns two other Maine lodging establishments, according to the lawsuit: Anchorage by the Sea in Ogunquit, and Harraseeket Inn in Freeport.
