Can hotels be held liable for sex trafficking on their premises? A spate of new lawsuits is testing the theory.

In the past week, hospitality providers including Wyndham, Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, Inter-Continental, Best Western, Red Lion, La Quinta and Choice have been hit with half a dozen heart-wrenching lawsuits by victims of sex trafficking, who say that the hotels knew—or should have known—what was happening under their roofs.

The new suits, filed in federal courts in Florida, Texas, Michigan, New Hampshire, Oregon and Washington, were all brought by different plaintiffs lawyers, including one of the biggest names of the bar—W. Mark Lanier of The Lanier Firm, who last year won a $4.7 billion verdict against Johnson & Johnson. 

"There are a handful of lawyers and firms that have decided that litigation can help reduce the human trafficking tragedy in the U.S.," Lanier told me. "We have met and discussed what legal forums and approaches are useful tools and we are united in our desire to see this horrific practice exposed and stopped."

The new suits follow in the tracks (and echo the language) of actions pending in the Southern District of Ohio, where a pair of suits filed in March have now survived motions to dismiss. 

The suits invoke the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which allows sex trafficking victims to bring civil actions against anyone who "knowingly benefits, financially or by receiving anything of value from participation in a venture which that person knew or should have known has engaged in an act in violation of this chapter" of the law.

None of the plaintiffs allege that the hotels actively participated in their trafficking. But did they knowingly benefit from it?

The specific allegations are sickening. For example, one plaintiff, identified as H.H., said she was trafficked for about eight months in 2015 at Motel 6 and Super 8 hotel locations in Columbus, Ohio.

"Despite obvious signs of human trafficking (branding, restraints, bruises, physical deterioration) and indicators of commercial sex activity (bottles of lubricants, boxes of condoms, excessive requests for towels and linens, cash payments) the defendants failed to protect the plaintiff from foreseeable harms and failed to prevent her continued victimization," states the complaint by Steven Babin Jr. of Babin Law in Columbus and Gregory M. Zarzaur of Zarzaur Mujumdar & Debrosse in Birmingham, Alabama.

The lawyers allege that the hotel operators saw H.H. on multiple occasions. "At each of the defendant hotels, the plaintiff was routinely escorted by her trafficker to the front desk to hand deliver cash payments for the reserved room out of which the sex trafficking venture operated."

It gets worse.

"During the time period in which the plaintiff was sex trafficked in Columbus, Ohio, she was discovered by the hotel cleaning staff at the defendant Motel 6 Columbus tied to the guest room bed and despite her desperate pleas for help, the staff ignored her and did nothing to rescue or otherwise protect the plaintiff from the ongoing and obvious torture she was enduring," wrote Babin and Zarzaur.

"Similarly, at the defendant Super 8 Columbus, a female member of the hotel housekeeping staff with long, dark hair discovered the plaintiff chained up in the bathroom of the hotel room out of which she was being trafficked. Again, despite the plaintiff's desperate pleas for help, the staff person ignored her and did nothing."

DLA's David Sager and Christopher Donovan represent Super 8 brand owner Wyndham Hotels and Resorts Inc.

In a statement, a Wyndham spokeswoman said, "We condemn human trafficking in any form. Through our partnerships with the International Tourism Partnership, ECPAT-USA, Polaris Project and other organizations that share the same values, we have worked to enhance our policies condemning human trafficking while also providing training to help our team members, as well as the hotels we manage, identify and report trafficking activities. We also make training opportunities available for our franchised hotels, which are independently owned and operated. As the matter is subject to pending litigation, we're unable to comment further at this time."

DLA Piper's Angela Agrusa represents Motel 6 owner G6 Hospitality. In court papers, Agrusa and local counsel Hahn Loeser & Parks argued that while the company "condemns all forms of human trafficking and sexual exploitation, plaintiff does not allege G6's participation in the alleged trafficking described in her complaint, or any conduct towards, interaction with, or even knowledge of plaintiff or her alleged trafficker."

The defense team added, "Plaintiff does not (and cannot in good faith) allege that G6 knowingly benefited from or participated in plaintiff's sex trafficking."

U.S. District Chief Judge Algenon Marbley in the Southern District on Dec. 6 refused to dismiss the suit. "Defendants need not have actual knowledge of the sex trafficking in order to have participated in the sex trafficking venture for civil liability under the TVPRA," Marbley wrote. "This court finds plaintiff has alleged sufficient facts to show defendants 'participated in a venture' under § 1595 by alleging that defendants rented rooms to people it knew or should have known were engaged in sex trafficking."

In October, Marbley penned a lengthier decision where he refused to dismiss a suit by another plaintiff, M.A., who alleges she was trafficked from 2014 to 2015 at Days Inn by Wyndham, Comfort Inn, and Crowne Plaza locations in Columbus. The plaintiff is represented by Babin and Zarzaur, as well as lawyers from Levin, Papantonio, Thomas, Mitchell, Rafferty & Proctor in Pensacola, Florida.

In that decision, Marbley found renting a room constituted a sufficient "financial benefit from a relationship with the trafficker."

Unlike H.H., M.A. didn't allege that specific hotel employees saw her in a deteriorated state (though she argued some surely must have heard her cries for help). But Marbley ruled that at this stage, it didn't matter—she doesn't need to prove reckless disregard, but "only that the defendants 'should have known' about the nature of the venture under a negligence standard." 

"M.A. has alleged that defendants were on notice about the prevalence of sex trafficking generally at their hotels and failed to take adequate steps to train staff in order to prevent its occurrence," the judge wrote. "She also alleges facts specific to her own sex trafficking, including a number of signs she alleges should have alerted staff to her situation. These allegations are sufficient to survive a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss."

How these cases will play out is hard to predict. But for hotels concerned about brand image, these don't seem like good candidates for aggressive litigation.

For more on legal issues surrounding sex trafficking, see this excellent series earlier this fall by my colleague Max Mitchell.