Hotel near Oakland airport faces federal lawsuit from alleged child sex trafficking victim
A federal lawsuit filed this week seeks to hold an Oakland hotel liable for sex trafficking by guests at the hotel under a statute that makes a company liable if it benefits from, and knew, or should have known, about the trafficking.
The lawsuit was brought Monday by an anonymous minor designated as "P.S." by her mother against Landowners of Oakland Airport Hotel Ltd., as the owner and operator of the Oakland Airport Executive Hotel, located at 150 Hegenberger Road in Oakland.
The suit alleges that the minor was a sex trafficking victim and was "induced by force, fraud, and coercion by her trafficker to engage in commercial sex" at the hotel in 2023. According to the suit, the hotel knew or should have known of the trafficking.
Among the "red flags" that should have alerted the hotel, the plaintiff alleges, were "constant foot traffic to the rented rooms," the victim walking around the hotel "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."
According to the complaint, hotel staff observed many of the red flags, and they also saw the minor, her trafficker and "a frequent procession of sex buyers going in and out of the subject rented rooms."
The complaint says the minor was born in 2008, which would have made her 14 or 15 at the time of the alleged trafficking.
The lawsuit does not identify by name the trafficker or traffickers involved, and only the hotel's owner is named as a defendant. (Multiple attempts Wednesday to reach the hotel's owner or manager were unsuccessful.)
Tripadvisor, the popular trip planning app, rates the hotel as #23 of 51 hotels in Oakland with a 3.5 (out of 5) rating based on 745 guest reviews. It reports that the hotel contains "189 beautifully-appointed accommodations, including rooms with private balconies," and states that with "six flexible meeting rooms" it is "a desirable choice for casually luxurious meeting venues in the Bay Area."
The lawsuit is the latest in a growing number of suits against hotels and service providers under the 2008 amendments to the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. The amendments added so-called "venture liability" provisions allowing victims to recover damages in a civil suit from a person or entity that both profited from, and knew, or should have known, about the trafficking.
The Human Trafficking Legal Center is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit advocacy group dedicated to the abolition of human trafficking. According to statistics gathered and published by the center in 2024 under the title "Using Civil Litigation to Combat Human Trafficking," 929 civil lawsuits have been brought since 2003 under the TVPRA law. The cases have generally been divided between cases alleging "forced labor" or sex trafficking.
In the sex trafficking category, from 2008 when the venture liability amendments were passed, there have been a total of 427 cases. In the first 11 years after the amendments, the statute was rarely used and only an average of three cases a year were filed.
That began to change in 2019, when 47 cases were filed. During the COVID-19 years of 2020 and 2021, new sex trafficking lawsuits averaged 55 cases a year. In 2022 and 2023, the average doubled to roughly 120 cases per year, and while statistics are not yet available for 2024, it is expected that the filings have increased again.
TVPRA cases have been filed throughout the country, with the greatest numbers in Florida, New York and Texas, followed by California. Plaintiffs in the cases have come from 84 countries. The greatest number were filed by U.S. citizens, followed by those from Mexico, the Philippines and India. Nearly half of the plaintiffs, like P.S., brought their claims under a pseudonym.
Of the sex trafficking cases, most involve corporate or institutional defendants. Claims against hotels and the hospitality industry made up 55% of the claims.
Many of the sex trafficking cases are still in process, and of the cases resolved, settlement amounts are generally confidential. However, the Human Trafficking Legal Center says that as of Dec 31, 2023, an aggregate of $517 million is known to have been paid to plaintiffs in sex trafficking cases, driven by $290 million and $75 million settlements with JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank, respectively, arising from Jeffrey Epstein's infamous sex trafficking venture.
While hospitality companies are the defendants in most cases, the same principles are also being asserted against corporate enterprises that provide completely different services to traffickers.
For example, Salesforce Inc., a San Francisco technology company, is involved in a cluster of 30 cases consolidated in a federal court in Texas. In those cases, the plaintiffs allege that they were compelled into prostitution and sex trafficked on Backpage, an online marketplace used for the sale of sex.
The plaintiffs contend that over a five-year contractual relationship, "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."
The plaintiffs added, "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." According to plaintiffs, this "is a case where Salesforce directly assisted a known trafficking and pimping business to expand its operations."
Salesforce sharply disputed the plaintiffs' allegations and moved to dismiss the plaintiffs' amended complaint on grounds that they had not shown that Salesforce knew or should have known that the plaintiffs were being subjected to force, coercion or fraud by Backpage or its principals, as the TVPRA requires.
As of Wednesday, Salesforce's motion had not been decided.
Given the scope of human trafficking—the plaintiffs in the Salesforce case reference estimates of more than 40 million people worldwide—it seems as if more private litigation in this area can be expected.
The Human Trafficking Legal Center notes in its report that in 2023, authorities in the U.S. initiated only 12 criminal prosecutions for labor trafficking prosecutions. It concludes that "civil litigation is often the only path—especially for survivors of forced labor—to ensure accountability."
In its opinion, "over the last two years, survivors of trafficking have shown remarkable courage and resilience, bravely challenging their traffickers in federal court."
The owner of the Oakland Airport Executive Hotel have not yet filed a response to the plaintiff's complaint and will have an opportunity to challenge her allegations.