Perhaps the most welcome news in U.S. courts this week came out of Texas, but a Northwest Arkansas judge also recently provided a pretty good example of using punitive damages to draw attention to egregious behaviors.
In Texas, it was conspiracy hawker and professional liar Alex Jones, of Infowars fame, who was ordered to pay $49.3 million in total damages -- including $45.2 million in punitive damages -- to the parents of a first-grader killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary massacre. Jones had said the shooting was a hoax orchestrated by the U.S. government to tighten U.S. gun laws.
The Associated Press, in reporting Friday's judgment, described punitive damages as a way to punish defendants for deplorable behaviors. "A high punitive award is also seen as a chance for jurors to send a wider societal message and a way to deter others from the same abhorrent conduct in the future," the AP reporter wrote.
On July 29 in Bentonville, Benton County Judge Doug Schrantz made pretty strong use of punitive damages to drive home a point, too.
A $19 million point.
The local lawsuit involved a woman who, according to documents filed with the court, was held against her will by a sex trafficker and forced to engage in sexual acts with men, with all the money going to the trafficker. Between the summer of 2014 and July 2018, the woman was abused, coerced and manipulated, according to the documents. She was between 14 and 17 years old during that period.
The trafficking took place at the Economy Inn at 3574 W. Sunset St. in Springdale, according to the court. She was kept there for up to a month and a half at a time, according to the records. Her allegations said management of the hotel would notify her trafficker if law enforcement officers were snooping around and advise him to move her down the street to another business, the Royal Inn, until things quieted down. The lawsuit was also against OM Hospitality Inc. and several unidentified employees.
Schrantz found the two businesses conspired to conceal the victim's trafficking. Included in an award of more than $25 million was punitive damages of more than $19 million.
"The Court is mindful that there are numerous reports of under-aged children being trafficked in Northwest Arkansas," Schrantz wrote in his order. "This award for both compensatory and punitive damages is a fair judgment and hopefully will result in a substantial decrease in the numbers of under-aged children being trafficked in Northwest Arkansas and elsewhere in our State."
Amen to that.
The businesses weren't responsive to the lawsuit, prompting Schrantz to file a default judgment in April. The judge determined the hotels owed a duty of care to the woman but failed in many ways, largely by ignoring signs that trafficking was going on in the hotel and failing to take simple steps to guard against trafficking on the hotel's property.
Some in Arkansas would ask the state's residents to ban large punitive awards in the name of giving businesses some protection and insurance companies predictability, but in a case like this, a punitive award speaks loudly to the atrocity of human trafficking. The woman may have a long fight ahead to ever get a penny, but it would be shameful if the court was forced to treat this case as just any other legal dispute.
A business like a hotel isn't responsible for every illegal activity that occurs on its property, but when it becomes a participant in covering up crimes, punitive damages ought to be part of any civil litigation that follows.
Let's hope the court's judgment will move other hotel properties to take an active role in fighting the scourge of human trafficking.
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NoneWhat’s the point?
A large punitive award in a human trafficking lawsuit will hopefully promote resistance the practice.