Human trafficking victims seek changes in Ga. tort reform bill

ATLANTA, Ga. - Georgia lawmakers continued hearing hours of testimony regarding the impact of liability lawsuits on Georgia businesses, consumers and crime victims Tuesday.

Senate Bill 68, part of Gov. Brian Kemp’s tort reform package, had two more hearings in the state House rules subcommittee this week.

Premises liability was Monday’s focus. Current law holds property owners able for any crime that happens on or near their property based on the crime’s “foreseeability” and the measures they took to prevent it.

Those opposing the bill said current law holds businesses able not just for general safety measures, but for crimes such as sex trafficking.

“My trafficker was the man in the hospital lobby who watched me be abused and did nothing,” one sex trafficking victim testified. “My trafficker was the maid who emptied trashcans full of used condoms and cleaned bloodstained sheets and stayed silent.

“My traffickers were the hotel managers and managed who saw bruised and terrified girls day after day after day, who watched hundreds of men come and go, who witnessed us trying to run away in the parking lot only to be dragged back by our hair screaming and still they did nothing.”

One mother attended and held up photos of her son, who she said “was sexually abused numerous times by another child at a summer day camp ... due to multiple failures by the camp in following and enforcing their own abuse prevention policies rather than because of some physical condition at the camp.”

The woman said she filed a civil premise liability lawsuit, but believes the bill would deny other families that right.

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Many attorneys spoke on behalf of victims who had been trafficked.

“Under the bill that’s currently written, there will never be another survivor filing a case in Georgia courts,” said attorney Jonathan Tonge, “It would be malpractice to do that.”

“I’ve had almost 30 clients who were all trafficked at the same two hotels in Atlanta; that’s not a coincidence, but a repeated pattern over more than a decade that’s affected a generation of girls in Atlanta,” Tonge said.

Tonge explained nuisance claims are the only claim a human trafficking survivor can employ that can shut down a property.

“I don’t think anybody will ever file a negligence claim after this bill es,” Tonge exclaimed. I’ve counted 13 different knowledge requirements including that the owner of the property has to consciously understand that a third person is likely to imminently engage in wrongful conduct.”

Tonge said he’s never heard of any area of the law that required “conscious understanding,” pointing out that that means it’s inside somebody’s head and people would just lie.

Atlanta Attorney Andy Rogers called out wording in the bill such as the need for “clear and convincing evidence” as part of the burden to prove a property owner was negligent.

That “exists nowhere else concerning any other personal injury claim of any kind in the entire civil code. It is reserved for punitive damages proof. It is reserved for fraud actions and it has no place in a claim for personal injury,” Rogers stated.

The rules subcommittee will decide whether to make changes. SB68 ed the Senate with one amendment at the end of February, which bill Sponsor John Kennedy said was a compromise.

Governor Kemp has hinted at calling a special session if tort reform does not .

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