Why You Should be Paying Attention to a Lawsuit in Georgia

Two Georgia hotels are defendants in a sex trafficking lawsuit that could roil the industry, and your general counsel should be aware by now.

Criminals have for many years used hotels for human trafficking purposes, unfortunately, and even the Department of Homeland Security has acknowledged such a fact. Now, people have alleged that the two hotels’ inaction came from the direct monetary benefit that they allegedly enjoyed as bad actors moved women inside and outside of the building.

A Florida attorney alleged the same pattern earlier this year. Judges around the country may need to get used to lawsuits like these. The more collective traction they get, the more forthrightly you’ll have to respond as a building to these threats and as an industry more generally.

The courts may find that hotels have some culpability

Judges and the general public see this issue differently than they used to.

Hotels can no longer skirt these issues without dealing with the fallout that can come with litigation. OUR Rescue posits that hotels end up in these ordeals because they are among many other things a place where trafficking takes place.

To some extent, some people may feel that hotels actively or tacitly benefit from trafficking because bad actors pay for rooms where they do their illicit business. Per the National Human Trafficking Hotline, hotels are a trafficking hotbed because of many factors, including the ease of access and the ability to pay cash in many cases.

Months ago, Red Roof Inn settled with several parties in the nation’s first lawsuit involving a national motel brand.

A federal court has found that an insurer will have to defend one Georgia hotel from these claims, which is unprecedented for several reasons.

Chief among them is interpreting what “bodily injury” means relative to the insurer’s policy.

That might mean your insurer changes its language to defend the bottom line.

Insurance companies don’t like paying out, and they may change their modus operandi if it means that they don’t need to do so. As you might expect, what one insurer responds to will compel others to do the same.

That could quickly change the industry standard. A neighboring state can tell Georgians what that feels like. Don’t think your insurer is not following these cases; you can bet that they will see the writing on the wall early enough to act accordingly.

Trafficking is an intractable issue in much of the country, and hotels are a target

Dolman Law Group prides itself on bringing litigation against hotels for trafficking concerns, which are now much more common than they used to be.

Hundreds of hotels and motels have found themselves in court, battling people who blame the business for not stopping a ghastly situation. You need to be aware that the general public may more easily latch on to the idea that hotels are at fault than they would have maybe a generation ago.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act has many iterations, and the legal landscape has changed. A lawsuit like this would have found no home in the legal system for many years, but circumstances have changed.

The Georgia lawsuit in the federal courts stems from that act and a judge’s interpretation of their culpability.

There’s no quick fix that would make hotels that much less of a target for these bad actors, but the onus is on your staff to watch for these issues. Any misstep could mean a long, litigious year for your hotel, which will take away from what you should be doing  — running a hotel and helping the guests within.