Here is the nightmare:  you have a good case against an international hotel corporation for lack of security, and you have a badly injured client.  Do you take the case or refer it to a law firm that has done this type of work before?  As many attorneys know, sadly, trying to sue Club Med requires learning the actual names of  both the local and US corporations.  Here, in this case  plaintiff’s attorney missed several Hilton corporations and now has a problem.

"A Manhattan attorney’s confusion about the proper parties to sue did not justify filing a vicarious liability claim four months beyond the statute of limitations, a federal judge has held.

However, Southern District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum in Chrobak v. Hilton Group, 06 Civ. 1916, allowed to proceed a negligent supervision allegation filed by a woman who claimed that she was raped by a security guard at the hotel where she was vacationing. Mr. Manchanda, an attorney with the Manchanda Law Offices in Manhattan, said in court papers that though the parties were not named in the original complaint they should have known that, but for a "mistake," they would have been named.

Judge Cedarbaum said this argument was "unavailing."