
12.	Legal Proceedings

We are involved in various legal proceedings in the normal course of business regarding the operation of our hotels and company matters. To the extent not covered by insurance, these legal proceedings generally fall into the following broad categories: disputes involving hotel-level contracts, employment litigation, compliance with laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, tax disputes and other general matters. Under our management agreements, our operators have broad latitude to resolve individual hotel-level claims for amounts generally less than $150,000. However, for matters exceeding such threshold, our operators may not settle claims without our consent.

Excluding the San Antonio litigation discussed below, based on our analysis of legal proceedings with which we currently are involved or of which we are aware and our experience in resolving similar claims in the past, we have accrued approximately $23 million as of March 31, 2014 for liabilities related to legal proceedings and estimate that, in the aggregate, our losses related to these proceedings could be as much as $50 million. We believe this range represents the maximum potential loss for all of our legal proceedings. We are not aware of any other matters with a reasonably possible unfavorable outcome for which disclosure of a loss contingency is required. No assurances can be given as to the outcome of any pending legal proceedings.

We also have accrued a loss contingency of approximately $69 million related to the litigation concerning the ground lease for the San Antonio Marriott Rivercenter. On May 16, 2012, we filed a Petition for review in the Texas Supreme Court and provided briefing on the merits, which were concluded in January 2013. On June 28, 2013, the Court issued an order denying the petition for review; however, on December 13, 2013, the Court granted our motion for rehearing on that order and heard oral arguments on our appeal on February 4, 2014. No assurances can be given as to the outcome of this appeal. In relation to this legal proceeding, we previously funded a court-ordered $25 million escrow reserve, which is included in restricted cash. For further details on this legal proceeding, see Part I, Item 3, Legal Proceedings, of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2013.