In July, a federal jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia sent a powerful and long-overdue message to the hospitality industry in J.G. v. Northbrook Industries Inc.: If you ignore sex trafficking happening on your property, you will pay a price.

In a historic verdict, the jury awarded $40 million in damages, including $30 million in punitive damages, to a woman, identified as J.G., who was sex-trafficked at a motel outside Atlanta when she was just 16 years old.

The decision marks the first successful jury verdict of its kind in Georgia, and is the largest in the country against a hotel for failing to intervene in human trafficking. The details are harrowing.

J.G. was sold to hundreds of men over six weeks at the United Inn & Suites in DeKalb County, Georgia. Motel employees allegedly saw her purchasing condoms, noticed a constant stream of male visitors and even received contact from police about her, but still did nothing.  One staff member reportedly warned her to “watch the number of visitors” coming through her room, a chilling reminder of how normalized trafficking has become in some corners of the hotel industry.

This interaction highlights a failure to recognize J.G. as a victim, a lack of proper training to identify signs of trafficking, and a failure to implement or enforce protective policies. Instead of intervening, motel staff allegedly placed the responsibility on her for the stream of men, ignoring one of many red flags of trafficking.

This case wasn’t brought under state negligence laws, which were dismissed by the court. Instead, it proceeded under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, a federal law that allows survivors to sue third parties that knowingly benefit from trafficking.

The jury found that the motel’s ownership, Northbrook Industries, failed to take any meaningful action, despite clear and repeated signs that trafficking was taking place on their property. This verdict is not just a victory for J.G. — it’s a wake-up call to an industry that in too many cases has not taken the necessary steps to protect those suffering in its hallways.

We represent dozens of survivors in multiple states in lawsuits with strikingly similar fact patterns: underage girls or young women trafficked in hotel rooms, with staff either oblivious, indifferent or complicit. Whatever the location, the warning signs are often the same, and too often ignored.

What makes this case especially significant is where it happened. Georgia is not typically known for large civil jury awards. That a jury in this jurisdiction not only found the motel liable but also issued an eight-figure punitive award sends a strong message: The public is no longer willing to tolerate corporate apathy when it comes to trafficking.

These types of verdicts are necessary. They reflect what many of us in the legal and victim advocacy communities have long understood: Trafficking is not just a criminal justice issue — it’s a systemic failure that strips people of their most basic rights.

The private sector must be held accountable for its role and participation. Hotels, in particular, have a responsibility to train staff, enforce anti-trafficking policies, and respond when red flags appear.

It is not enough to rent the room and look the other way. The idea that companies can continue profiting while pretending not to notice is both morally indefensible and, increasingly, legally untenable.

The hospitality industry knows what trafficking looks like. Organizations like ECPAT-USA and the Polaris Project have developed comprehensive training materials, and many hotel brands have public anti-trafficking policies.

But too often, training — if it exists at all — is not consistent or mandatory, and staff are left without clear protocols for reporting concerns or responding to red flags. This failure is no longer just a moral issue — it’s a legal and financial risk.

Under federal law, including the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, companies can be held liable for benefiting from trafficking if they know or should have known about it and fail to act on the obvious signs. That includes turning a blind eye to behaviors like frequent visitors, cash payments, or fearful, controlled guests.

As the Georgia verdict shows, juries are increasingly unwilling to accept inaction and claimed ignorance as a defense. To prevent future tragedies and mitigate legal exposure, hospitality companies must implement a more serious and systemic approach to compliance.

This begins with mandatory, ongoing training for all staff: not just a one-time video during onboarding, but real, scenario-based instruction delivered regularly and tailored to the roles employees actually perform.

Staff must be taught not only how to identify signs of trafficking — such as high volumes of regular visitors, guests appearing fearful or controlled, or cash payments with no luggage — but also what to do with that information.

It’s critical that employees understand the protocols for reporting concerns internally, and that those protocols are clear, accessible and backed by a corporate culture that prioritizes victim safety over customer convenience or revenue.

More fundamentally, corporate leadership must make a point of treating anti-trafficking policies as not just PR checkboxes, but enforceable operational standards with a zero-tolerance policy. That means conducting regular audits, ensuring that policies are actually being followed on the ground and holding managers accountable when they’re not.

It also means engaging with local law enforcement and anti-trafficking organizations to ensure response plans are grounded in current best practices, and most importantly, that they center the safety and dignity of potential victims.

In some cases, it may require revisiting the design of the business model itself: for example, whether franchise structures dilute responsibility and obscure oversight in ways that allow trafficking to flourish unnoticed. In other cases, in which parent companies have notice and knowledge of trafficking, they must take action to stop it.

That’s why verdicts like this matter. They don’t just deliver justice to survivors: They create financial consequences that force businesses to change their ways and address the issues occurring on their properties.

For survivors like J.G., taking a case to trial means reliving trauma in open court. It means waiting years for a resolution, all while facing teams of corporate defense lawyers trying to discredit their stories and attack their character. That she endured all of that and prevailed is a testament to her courage and strength.

This is not an isolated case. The hospitality industry has a choice: Implement real safeguards and become part of the solution, or participate in the sex trafficking industry and risk being held accountable in courtrooms across the country.

Meagan Verschueren and Katie Llamas are counsel at Singleton Schreiber LLP.