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Federal judge allows human trafficking lawsuit to proceed against Fort Collins motel operator

By February 18, 2025 | updated 7 months ago

A federal judge agreed earlier this month that a lawsuit could proceed against the operator of a Fort Collins motel for allegedly violating a 20-year-old human trafficking law.

The plaintiff, a transgender woman identified as P.C., alleged she was the victim of sex trafficking at the Motel 6 located at 3900 E. Mulberry Street. She claimed that in 2022, her traffickers paid for rooms, used the motel’s Internet to advertise her for sex online and even paid staff to act as lookouts or informants.

P.C. sued the motel operator, D Fort Hotel, LLC, for negligence as well as for violating the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. Congress originally enacted the law in 2000 and amended it in 2003 to allow victims to sue their traffickers. In 2008, Congress again amended the law enabling trafficking victims to sue anyone who “knowingly benefits” from a trafficking venture that they knew, or should have known, was illegal.

D Fort Hotel moved to dismiss the lawsuit. It acknowledged P.C.’s complaint alleged sexual activity was taking place at the Motel 6 and that employees may have even known about commercial sex activity, such as prostitution. But D Fort Hotel argued P.C. failed to show how its staff allegedly knew she was being coerced into trafficking.

“The Complaint did not allege that any of D Fort’s personnel witnessed non-consensual sex activity (or, indeed, any sex activity at all) or witnessed Plaintiff being threatened or assaulted by her alleged trafficker,” wrote attorney Kurt C. Temple, adding that P.C. never claimed she sought help from the staff.

In a Feb. 5 order, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Philip A. Brimmer acknowledged P.C.’s allegations generally supported the idea that she was involved in commercial sex work, but not forced trafficking. While P.C. alleged that hotel staff saw weapons, cash, condoms, drugs and people in “sexually explicit clothing,” courts elsewhere have relied on “more direct evidence of force and coercion” when evaluating lawsuits similar to P.C.’s.

However, Brimmer pinpointed three allegations that supported the idea Motel 6 staff should have known P.C. was being trafficked involuntarily:

• Alleged trafficking victims “would walk around hotel grounds drug impaired and alcohol impaired, sleep impaired, hygiene impaired, behavior impaired, with bruises, and malnourished”

• “Defendant’s staff witnessed and observed Plaintiff, her trafficker, as well as a steady procession of sex buyers going in and out of the subject rented rooms”

• “Plaintiff’s trafficker had direct interaction with hotel employee(s) and staff by means of paying, befriending or compensating employee(s) and staff member(s) to act as lookout(s)/informant(s)”

“Although P.C.’s complaint lacks important details such as where and how large her bruises were, how many men visited the rooms of trafficking victims on a regular basis, and who at the hotel served as lookouts,” Brimmer wrote, “the Court finds that her complaint presents sufficient factual allegations to nudge her claim from possible to plausible.”

Following Brimmer’s order, D Fort Hotel filed a response to P.C.’s complaint generally denying her allegations.

The case is P.C. v. D Fort Hotel, LLC.

Michael Karlik

Reporter

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