Watershed Human Trafficking Case Against Motel Settles

A human trafficking lawsuit identified as one of the first of its kind — filed by a victim against a hotel owner or operator — recently settled out of court, NPR reports.

The lawsuit filed in Massachusetts involves a woman who accused The Shangri-La Hotel in Seekonk, Massachusetts, its operator and its on-site manager of ignoring clear signs she was in distress.

The case, identified by NPR as one of the first filed against a hotel operator under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003, could serve as a bellwether for dozens of other cases filed across the U.S. against small and major hotel brands for allegedly allowing or failing to stop human trafficking on their premises. 

While this Massachusetts case involves an obscure hotel in a New England city, Houston attorney Annie McAdams filed suit against many of the nation's top hotel brands under the same legal theory last year. 

The federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act cited in the recently settled Massachusetts case, and in McAdams' cases, allows plaintiffs to hold businesses and individuals accountable for profiting from enterprises tied to or engaged in human trafficking. 

McAdams filed most of her cases in Harris County in Houston last year while also suing Facebook and Backpage for helping traffickers facilitate business and criminal activity. 

McAdams sees all of the recent filings against hotels as a watershed moment that will provide commercial real estate owners and operators with the clarity they need to ensure they do not willingly or knowingly enable traffickers and criminal activities.  

“These are not cases where maybe somebody was raped or sexually assaulted in a room and there was no way for the hotel or business to know about it," McAdams told Bisnow last year. 

“These are cases where there is undeniable evidence that these hotels facilitated this behavior and knew that it was going on — whether it was 40 people in one room throughout a two-day period or six girls who were recovered from one hotel in different rooms. We have a situation where a 14-year-old was moved freely from room to room. Situations where it was undeniable that there were signals something was going on.”