According to a law that holds businesses accountable if they profit from, know about, or should have known about sex trafficking, a federal lawsuit filed this week aims to hold an Oakland hotel accountable for sex trafficking committed by hotel visitors.
The Oakland Airport Executive Hotel, situated at 150 Hegenberger Road in Oakland, is owned and operated by Landowners of Oakland Airport Hotel Ltd., which was sued on Monday by an unnamed juvenile named “P.S.” by her mother.
According to the lawsuit, in 2023, the juvenile was “induced by force, fraud, and coercion by her trafficker to engage in commercial sex” at the hotel after becoming a victim of sex trafficking. The lawsuit alleges that the hotel should have been aware of the trafficking.
Among the “red flags” that should have warned the hotel, according to the plaintiff, were “constant foot traffic to the rented rooms,” the victim’s “sleep deprived, hygiene impaired, behavior impaired, with visible bruising, malnourished, and in sexually explicit clothing;” and the “victim’s room exhibiting signs of commercial sex work.”
As to the lawsuit, hotel employees noticed numerous warning signs, as well as the juvenile, her trafficker, and “a frequent procession of sex buyers going in and out of the subject rented rooms.”
According to the complaint, the juvenile would have been 14 or 15 years old at the time of the alleged trafficking because she was born in 2008.
Only the owner of the hotel is identified as a defendant in the complaint, and neither the trafficker nor traffickers involved are named by name. (On Wednesday, there were several fruitless attempts to contact the manager or owner of the motel.)
Based on 745 guest reviews, the hotel has a 3.5 (out of 5) rating on Tripadvisor, the well-known travel planning tool, placing it at number 23 out of 51 hotels in Oakland. In addition to having “189 beautifully-appointed accommodations, including rooms with private balconies,” it claims that the hotel has “six flexible meeting rooms” and is “a desirable choice for casually luxurious meeting venues in the Bay Area.”
The case is the most recent in a series of lawsuits brought under the 2008 revisions to the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act against lodging establishments and service providers. The revisions included so-called “venture liability” clauses that enable victims to sue a person or organization that both made money off of the trafficking and knew or should have known about it for damages.
The Human Trafficking Legal Center is a nonprofit advocacy organization devoted to ending human trafficking with its headquarters located in Washington, D.C. Based on data collected and released by the organization in 2024 under the heading “Using Civil Litigation to Combat Human Trafficking,” the TVPRA law has been the subject of 929 civil actions since 2003. Generally speaking, the cases are split between those who claim “forced labor” and those that involve sex trafficking.
Since the enterprise liability changes were passed in 2008, there have been 427 instances in the field of sex trafficking. Only an average of three cases were brought year during the first 11 years following the revisions, and the Act was hardly ever invoked.
With the filing of 47 cases in 2019, that started to alter. The average annual number of new sex trafficking litigation during the COVID-19 years of 2020 and 2021 was 55. The average doubled to about 120 cases annually in 2022 and 2023, and although 2024 numbers are not yet available, it is anticipated that the number of submissions has climbed once more.
Although TVPRA lawsuits have been brought all across the US, Florida, New York, and Texas have the most numbers, followed by California. The cases have involved plaintiffs from 84 different nations. Americans filed the most, followed by nationals of Mexico, the Philippines, and India. Pseudonyms were used by over half of the litigants, including P.S.
The majority of sex trafficking cases involve institutional or corporate defendants. Fifty-five percent of the claims were against hotels and the hospitality sector.
A large number of sex trafficking cases are still pending, and the settlement sums for those that are settled are typically kept private. However, according to the Human Trafficking Legal Center, as of December 31, 2023, a total of $517 million had been paid to plaintiffs in sex trafficking cases. This amount was primarily driven by settlements with JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank, which totaled $290 million and $75 million, respectively, and resulted from Jeffrey Epstein’s notorious sex trafficking enterprise.
The same concepts are being used to corporate enterprises that offer traffickers quite different services, even though hotel companies are typically the defendants.
For instance, a group of 30 cases merged in a federal court in Texas involve the San Francisco technology corporation Salesforce Inc. The plaintiffs in those instances claim that they were forced into prostitution and trafficked in sex on Backpage, an online sex marketplace.
Over the course of a five-year contract, the plaintiffs claim that “Salesforce created, owned, controlled, maintained, and provided to Backpage the Customer Relationship Management (‘CRM’) technology that facilitated the growth of Backpage and the trafficking of untold thousands on its website.”
According to the plaintiffs, “Technology companies can no longer divorce themselves from the technologies they create and platforms they assist and support when they are being used in an unlawful, harmful, and costly manner.” The plaintiffs believe that this “is a case where Salesforce directly assisted a known trafficking and pimping business to expand its operations.”
As required by the TVPRA, Salesforce vehemently denied the plaintiffs’ claims and moved to have the plaintiffs’ amended complaint dismissed on the grounds that the plaintiffs had not demonstrated that Salesforce knew or should have known that Backpage or its principals were subjecting the plaintiffs to coercion, fraud, or force.
Salesforce’s move was still pending as of Wednesday.
It appears that further private litigation in this area is to be expected given the extent of human trafficking, since the plaintiffs in the Salesforce case cite estimates of over 40 million persons globally.
According to a report by the Human Trafficking Legal Center, only 12 criminal cases for labor trafficking were brought by U.S. authorities in 2023. It finds that “civil litigation is often the only path especially for survivors of forced labor to ensure accountability.”
According to the organization, “over the last two years, survivors of trafficking have shown remarkable courage and resilience, bravely challenging their traffickers in federal court.”
The Oakland Airport Executive Hotel’s owner will have a chance to refute the plaintiff’s claims as they have not yet responded to her case.
Eliot Pierce is a dedicated writer for ChiefsFocus.com, covering local crime and finance news. With a keen eye for detail and a passion for storytelling, Eliot aims to provide his readers with clear and insightful analysis, helping them navigate the complexities of their financial lives while staying informed about important local events. His commitment to delivering accurate and engaging content makes him a valuable resource for the community.