17.	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 lawsuits 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.

Based on our analysis of legal proceedings with which we are currently involved or of which we are aware and our experience in resolving similar claims in the past, we have accrued approximately $18 million as of December 31, 2013. We have estimated 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, with the exception of the San Antonio litigation discussed below. 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.

San Antonio Litigation. On April 27, 2005, we initiated a lawsuit against Keystone-Texas Property Holding Corporation (“Keystone”) seeking a declaration that a provision of the ground lease for the property under the San Antonio Marriott Rivercenter was valid and claiming that Keystone had breached that lease provision. On October 18, 2006, Keystone filed an amended counterclaim and later, a third party claim, alleging that we had tortiously interfered with Keystone’s attempted sale of the property and that we slandered Keystone’s title to the property.

On February 8, 2010, we received an adverse jury verdict in the 166^th Judicial District Court of Bexar County, Texas. The jury found that we tortiously interfered with the attempted sale by Keystone of the land under the San Antonio Marriott Rivercenter and awarded Keystone $34.3 million in damages, plus statutory interest. In addition, the jury found that we slandered Keystone’s title to the property and awarded Keystone $39 million in damages, plus statutory interest. Keystone only will be entitled to receive one of these damage awards. On February 12, 2010, the jury awarded Keystone $7.5 million in exemplary damages with respect to the second claim. The trial court, however, subsequently granted our motion to disregard the jury’s exemplary damages award. On June 3, 2010, the trial court issued its final judgment awarding Keystone: (i) $39 million in damages for slander of title; or (ii) alternatively, $34.3 million for tortious interference of contract; (iii) approximately $6.8 million in pre-judgment and post-judgment interest (as of December 31, 2013 interest was $17 million); (iv) approximately $3.5 million in attorneys’ fees, expenses, and costs; and (v) an additional $750,000 in attorneys’ fees for any appeal to the court of appeals and Texas Supreme Court.

On November 23, 2011, a three-judge panel of the San Antonio Court of Appeals issued its memorandum opinion denying our appeal of the trial court’s June 3, 2010 final judgment. In addition, the panel overturned the trial court’s decision to grant our motion to disregard the jury’s $7.5 million award of exemplary damages. On January 17, 2012, we filed motions seeking rehearing from the three-judge panel and a motion for rehearing by the entire seven-judge court of appeals. Those motions were denied on February 29, 2012.

On May 16, 2012, we filed a Petition for Review in the Texas Supreme Court and on August 17, 2012 the Court requested briefing on the merits. Briefing 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 argument on our appeal on February 4, 2014. No assurances can be given as to the outcome of this appeal. We have accrued a loss contingency of approximately $68 million. We have funded a court-ordered $25 million escrow reserve for this legal proceeding.