Lawsuits Remind How Tort Reform Could Make It Harder to Punish Sex-Traffickers in Arkansas

Tort Reform

Lawsuits recently filed around the country underscore how tort reform in Arkansas could make it harder to punish those who profit from sex-trafficking.

Last year a California woman sued a the owners of Days Inn where she allegedly was trafficked in 2013.

The lawsuit says the hotel owners provided support for her trafficker “despite obvious and apparent signs of sex trafficking.” It also alleges the hotel owners knowingly benefited from the sex-trafficking.

In June a sex-trafficking victim in Colorado sued the owners of a Motel 6 in Fort Collins, saying the owners “failed to act upon the obvious and overt signs alerting them to the sex trafficking” at the motel and “knowingly benefited from the sex trafficking.”

Unfortunately, situations like these have occurred in Arkansas — and they are a reminder of how lawsuit reforms can unintentionally make it harder to punish those who profit from sex-trafficking.

From 2014 to 2017, a teenage girl was trafficked at the Economy Inn in Springdale, Arkansas. According to court documents, the motel management knew she was being trafficked. If police came around, the motel’s management would advise the traffickers to move the girl to the Royal Inn down the street. The traffickers paid in cash, and the cleaning staff at the motel was not allowed in the girl’s room. Her abusers often kept her there for weeks at a time while the motel simply looked the other way.

The abuse she suffered was so horrible that experts estimate it may have shortened her life expectancy by more than a decade. After reviewing her case, a Benton County judge ordered the former owners of the motel to pay her more than $25.4 million as part of a lawsuit for negligently allowing her to be trafficked.

But if the nursing home industry and some Arkansas lawmakers had gotten their way a few years ago, that judgment against the motel might have been no more than $2 million.

In 2017 lawmakers voted to place an amendment on the ballot capping noneconomic and punitive damages in personal-injury lawsuits. Under that proposal, noneconomic damages could have been capped at $500,000 for injury or death, and punitive damages would have been limited to three times the noneconomic damages.

All of the damages that the judge ordered the motel owners to pay in this sex-trafficking case were noneconomic and punitive damages. Had Arkansas capped those damages, the most the judge could have awarded the sex-trafficking victim in this case would have been $500,000 for her pain and suffering and $1.5 million in punitive damages. That’s a total of $2 million instead of $25.4 million. Two million dollars might sound like a lot of money, but it is not much compensation for the destruction of a human life.

Fortunately, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that the legislature’s 2017 amendment was overly broad and could not be brought before the people for a vote. If that hadn’t happened, the motel owners that helped human traffickers in Northwest Arkansas might have gotten away with paying less than one-tenth as much money as the judge ultimately ordered them to pay.

Human traffickers should go to prison, and companies that aid or abet human trafficking should have to pay.

It’s hard to punish wrongdoing if our laws limit the amount of money a court can order someone to pay for injuring or killing another person. Family Council never has opposed responsible lawsuit reforms, but for more than 20 years we have opposed measures that make it harder to make wrongdoers pay in court.

These sex-trafficking cases highlight once again why Arkansas does not need to limit the ability of judges and juries to decide how much someone should have to pay for destroying a person’s life.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Lawsuit Shows Tort Reform Would Make It Harder to Punish Sex-Trafficking in Arkansas

Tort Reform

In the summer of 2014 a 14 year old girl was taken to the Economy Inn in Springdale, Arkansas. Over the next three years she was sexually assaulted, abused, and exposed to drug use as a victim of sex trafficking at the motel. According to court documents, the motel management knew she was being trafficked. If police came around the motel, management would advise the traffickers to move the girl to the Royal Inn down the street. The traffickers paid in cash, and the cleaning staff at the motel was not allowed in the girl’s room. Her abusers often kept her there for weeks at a time while the motel simply looked the other way and allowed her to be sold over and over again until July of 2017.

The abuse she suffered was so horrible that experts estimate it may have shortened her life expectancy by more than a decade. After reviewing her case, earlier this summer a Benton County judge ordered the former owners of the motel to pay her more than $25.4 million as part of a lawsuit for negligently allowing her to be trafficked.

But if the nursing home industry and some Arkansas lawmakers had gotten their way a few years ago, that judgment against the motel might have been no more than $2 million.

In 2017 lawmakers voted to place an amendment on the ballot capping noneconomic and punitive damages in personal-injury lawsuits. Under that proposal, noneconomic damages could have been capped at $500,000 for injury or death, and punitive damages would have been limited to three times the noneconomic damages.

All of the damages that the judge ordered the motel owners to pay in this sex trafficking case were noneconomic and punitive damages. Had Arkansas capped those damages, the most the judge could have awarded the sex trafficking victim in this case would have been $500,000 for her pain and suffering and $1.5 million in punitive damages. That’s a total of $2 million instead of $25.4 million. Two million dollars might sound like a lot of money, but it is not much compensation for the destruction of a human life.

Fortunately, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that the legislature’s 2017 amendment was overly broad and could not be brought before the people for a vote. If that hadn’t happened, the motel owners that helped human traffickers in Northwest Arkansas might have gotten away with paying less than one-tenth as much money as the judge ordered them to pay earlier this summer.

Human traffickers should go to prison, and companies that aid or abet human trafficking should have to pay.

It’s hard to punish wrongdoing if our laws limit the amount of money a court can order someone to pay for injuring or killing another person. Family Council never has opposed responsible lawsuit reforms, but for nearly 20 years we have opposed measures that make it harder to make wrongdoers pay in court.

This sex trafficking case out of Springdale highlights once again why Arkansas does not need to limit the ability of judges and juries to decide how much someone should have to pay for destroying a person’s life.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Arkansas Pro-Life Leader: Issue 1 Puts a Price Tag on Human Life

Tort Reform, , ,

Yesterday Arkansas Right to Life Executive Director Rose Mimms published an op-ed at TownHall.com regarding Issue 1 — a proposed constitutional amendment restricting noneconomic damages juries can award in lawsuits — writing,

Issue One would put an arbitrary cap of $500,000 on non-economic and caps punitive damages. In real life this means that if a 40 year old successful business man is killed negligently then his life could be worth millions because you could calculate his current earnings and multiply them out for the future. If a stay at home mom, a child or infant, a retired veteran, an individual with Down Syndrome or other genetic disorder who isn’t employed or a nursing home resident who dies as a result of abuse or someone else’s error or negligence then those lives are all capped at a value never to exceed $500,000. The jury simply can’t award a family more, even if it wanted to do so. Think of your loved ones, would you ever put a price tag on their lives?

Ultimately, Issue One says that some lives are more valuable than others. It says that your life’s value is determined by your what you earn at the time of a tragedy. It says that Arkansans on juries can’t hear the facts and award a family $1 million dollars for the abuse of their child who was left brain damaged or the neglect of their elderly mother in a nursing home. Issue One is one more step in devaluing life in a culture where we simply can’t afford any more slips down that slope.

Family Council Action Committee announced a few weeks ago that it would campaign against Issue 1, because the amendment puts a dollar value on human life.

We have written in the past about the unintended consequences of measures like Issue 1.

Family Council has never opposed responsible lawsuit reforms. As far back as 2003, we did not oppose general malpractice reform measures passed by the legislature. That same year, however, we did oppose a proposal that could have given an unfair advantage to nursing homes over good care for residents.

Some nursing home owners simply don’t want to spend the money necessary to provide quality care. They cut staff, reduce services, compromise care, and let people suffer. Most families have a story about a loved one who was neglected or mistreated in a nursing home. The fear of a lawsuit may be all that keeps some nursing homes in line. Issue 1 removes that threat. If that goes away, our elderly nursing home residents will suffer even more.

You can read  the entire op-ed by Rose Mimms here.

Photo Credit: By MediaPhoto.Org [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

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