Motel Sex Trafficking Lawsuit Results in $40M Verdict for Survivor

Jury award includes $30 million in punitive damages, intended to punish the motel operator for its role facilitating the sexual trafficking of a 16 year old girl.

The owners of a Georgia motel must pay $40 million to a woman who says staff knew she was being sexually trafficked on their property as a child, yet failed to help her, even after receiving a report that she was a missing person.

The woman, identified only as JG, was just 16 years old when sex traffickers held her at the United Inn & Suites in Decatur, Georgia in 2019. She was held there for 40 days, where she indicates that she was repeatedly raped for money more than 200 times, according to her lawsuit against the motel owner, Northbrook Industries, Inc.

Not only did staff fail to report a child being sexually trafficked at the motel, but she presented evidence at trial that police specifically contacted the motel, inquiring about her whereabouts, and staff did not tell law enforcement she was there being trafficked. The lawsuit also noted that the motel had a history of sex trafficking activity.

Last Friday, following a week-long trial, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia ordered Northbrook Industries to pay JG $10 million in compensatory damages and another $30 million in punitive damages for the company’s reckless endangerment and disregard for a child being sex trafficked on their property.

It is the first motel sex trafficking lawsuit to end in a verdict in Georgia history, according to various media reports. Last year, about a dozen similar claims were supposed to go to trial, but were settled shortly before the trials were scheduled to begin.

Motel Sex Trafficking Lawsuits

The lawsuit is one of dozens filed against hotels and motels nationwide over the last couple years by women who say hotel staff often know they were being trafficked, as well as physically and sexually abused, but refused to help. In fact, many of the lawsuits claim staff are not just aware of the abuse, but active participants.

Each of the motel sex trafficking lawsuits claim the companies placed profits before the safety of individuals being sexually exploited in their rooms and on their properties, by failing to enact and enforce procedures that would have prevented child sex trafficking. 

In April 2024, plaintiffs petitioned the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) to consolidate more than 100 similar hotel sex trafficking lawsuits before one federal judge for coordinated pretrial proceedings. 

However, the JPML refused the petition, expressing doubt that consolidation would lead to efficient coordination, due to the wide variety of defendant hotel operators involved in the claims, specific facts relevant to each individual incident and other factors that made the cases more individualized.

The decision means the cases are continuing to proceed as individual motel sex trafficking lawsuits in various district courts nationwide.