The Hotel Was Supposed To Be Safe. It Wasn’t.
You went to a hotel in Southfield expecting an ordinary night. Maybe you were meeting someone. Maybe you were staying for a work trip. Maybe you were just trying to get a room and rest. Instead, you were robbed. Or you were trafficked. Or you watched someone you love walk into a room and come out broken in ways that have no name.
We are writing for you. The hotel guest who was harmed inside a property that was supposed to be a safe place to sleep. The family member who is just now learning what happened to a loved one inside one of these rooms. The survivor of trafficking who has been carrying this in silence and just saw the news break.
Southfield is a commercial hub carved up by the Lodge Freeway and I-696. Hotels cluster along Telegraph Road, near the Southfield Freeway, and around the old City Centre campus. These properties are built to serve thousands of guests every week. They are also, far too often, where serious crimes happen — because the hotels that profit from the rooms do not pay enough attention to what is happening inside them.
In February 2026, Southfield police executed search warrants on two hotel rooms and found suspected cocaine and suspected fentanyl along with evidence of an active human trafficking operation. Three people were arrested: a 30-year-old Inkster man and a 27-year-old Pennsylvania woman held on $50,000 bond, and a 29-year-old Woodhaven man held on $5,000 bond. The charges include operating a human trafficking enterprise, accepting earnings of prostitution, possession of a controlled substance, and transportation of a prostitute. The trafficking operation is connected to crimes reported in Bloomfield Township, Canton, and Romulus.
The case did not start as a trafficking case. It started when a 47-year-old Detroit man walked into that same Southfield hotel to meet a sex worker and was robbed. His report to police cracked the door open. When officers searched the rooms, they found evidence that the robbery and the trafficking were the same operation — the same rooms, the same people, the same cash by the hour, the same refusal of housekeeping, the same steady stream of men and women passing through doors the hotel staff could see but did not stop.
If that robbery victim is you, you have a civil case against the hotel that let it happen. If you are a survivor of the trafficking that this investigation uncovered, you have a civil case too — one that does not depend on whether the criminal case ends in a conviction. That is what this page is about.
How the Hotel Became Part of the Crime
Federal law defines human trafficking as the use of force, fraud, or coercion to compel a person into commercial sex acts or labor. The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act gives survivors a civil remedy against the trafficker — and against anyone who knowingly benefits from the trafficking venture.
The hotel in this case was not charged with trafficking. But under federal civil law, a hotel that knowingly benefits from a trafficking operation can be held civilly liable alongside the trafficker. The statute reads:
“An individual who is a victim of a violation of this chapter may bring a civil action against the perpetrator (or whoever knowingly benefits, or attempts or conspires to benefit, financially or by receiving anything of value from participation in a venture which that person knew or should have known has engaged in an act in violation of this chapter) in an appropriate district court of the United States and may recover damages and reasonable attorneys fees.”
— 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a)
The federal civil right is wide. It reaches the trafficker and reaches the business that pocketed the money. A motel that rents rooms by the night to a known trafficker, accepts cash for those rooms, watches the same man check in with different women week after week, sees the housekeeping refusals and the parade of men and the smell of drugs and never once calls police, can be on the hook for the entire scope of the harm the survivor suffered.
A robbery victim — a john who went to meet a sex worker and was robbed instead — has a separate but parallel civil case. That case is a Michigan premises liability case against the hotel for negligent security. The theory is simple: a hotel that rents rooms to people who are being robbed inside the hotel has not done its job. The hotel had a duty to provide reasonable security, the duty was breached, the breach caused the robbery, and the robbery caused the harm.
These are two different doors into the same building. The trafficking survivor walks in through the federal TVPRA door. The robbery victim walks in through the Michigan premises liability door. Both doors lead to the hotel’s insurance and to the hotel’s pocket.
The Hotel’s Legal Duty Under Michigan Law
Michigan law is unusually favorable to premises-liability plaintiffs right now, after the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision in Kandil-Elsayed v. F & E Oil, Inc., 510 Mich 1 (2023). That decision changed the way the open-and-obvious-danger doctrine works in Michigan premises cases. Before 2023, a defendant could raise the open-and-obvious argument as a complete bar to duty — meaning if the danger was visible, the defendant owed no duty at all. The Kandil-Elsayed court moved that analysis out of the duty question and into the breach and comparative-fault analysis. The hotel cannot now point to the fact that the danger was visible and claim it owed no duty. The hotel owed a duty of reasonable care. The question becomes whether the hotel breached that duty, and whether the breach was a proximate cause of the harm.
This is a major shift. In a Michigan negligent security case, the hotel’s defense used to be able to argue: “The parking lot was well-lit. The guest could see the danger. No duty.” That argument now goes to comparative fault, not to the existence of a duty at all. A jury in Oakland County will hear the case on its merits.
The elements of a Michigan negligent security case are the ones you would expect: the hotel owed a duty of reasonable care to its guests; the hotel breached that duty by failing to provide adequate security; the breach was a proximate cause of the injury; and damages resulted. The Michigan comparative-fault rule reduces recovery by the plaintiff’s percentage of fault but does not bar it unless the plaintiff is more than fifty percent at fault. A robbery victim who went to the hotel voluntarily to meet a sex worker is not automatically barred from recovery under Michigan law.
The foreseeability question is where the negligent security case wins or loses. The hotel’s defense will argue that the robbery was not foreseeable. We will counter with what the hotel knew: the prior calls for service to the property, the prior incidents in the surrounding area, the staffing levels, the camera placements, the lighting in the hallways and parking lot, the key-card access logs. In this case, the foreseeability argument is especially strong because the hotel was already hosting a trafficking operation out of two of its rooms. The hotel cannot credibly claim the danger was unforeseeable when the danger was happening in the building.
The Trafficking Survivors’ Case Under Federal Law
For the trafficking survivors, the federal civil case is the right vehicle. The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, as amended, gives survivors the right to sue in federal court. The civil remedy is broad and the statute of limitations is generous:
“No action may be maintained under subsection (a) unless it is commenced not later than the later of — (1) 10 years after the cause of action arose; or (2) 10 years after the victim reaches 18 years of age, if the victim was a minor at the time of the alleged offense.”
— 18 U.S.C. § 1595(c)
Ten years from the cause of action, or ten years from the survivor’s eighteenth birthday if they were trafficked as a minor. That second clause matters. Many trafficking survivors are first victimized as teenagers. Under the federal rule, the clock does not start until they turn eighteen — so a survivor trafficked at fifteen has until they turn twenty-eight to file. This is one of the most survivor-friendly civil statutes in American law, and it was written that way on purpose.
The hotel can be sued under the TVPRA. The hotel can also be sued under Michigan’s own anti-trafficking framework. Michigan’s Human Trafficking Victims Compensation Act provides compensation for trafficking survivors out of a state-administered fund, and Michigan’s criminal anti-trafficking statutes create obligations on hospitality businesses that are increasingly being enforced.
The platform immunity question comes up in trafficking cases against online classified-ad sites and booking platforms, and the federal answer is clear after the FOSTA amendment to 47 U.S.C. § 230. The immunity that websites enjoyed for third-party content was narrowed for trafficking claims:
“Nothing in this section (other than subsection (c)(2)(A)) shall be construed to impair or limit — (A) any claim in a civil action brought under section 1595 of title 18, if the conduct underlying the claim constitutes a violation of section 1591 of that title; (B) any charge in a criminal prosecution brought under State law if the conduct underlying the charge would constitute a violation of section 1591 of that title; or (C) any charge in a criminal prosecution brought under State law if the conduct underlying the charge would constitute a violation of section 2421A of title 18, and promotion or facilitation of prostitution is illegal in the jurisdiction where the defendant’s promotion or facilitation of prostitution was targeted.”
— 47 U.S.C. § 230(e)(5)
For the physical hotel itself, that section 230 analysis is not the issue. The hotel is a brick-and-mortar premises, not a website. But the FOSTA framework matters because it confirms that Congress recognized the civil-remedy route as the survivor’s path and chose to preserve it.
The Evidence Clock — What Disappears in Days, Not Months
The evidence that wins or loses these cases dies fast. We move first because the records that prove the case will be gone in weeks if we do not freeze them now.
Hotel surveillance video is the most important and the most perishable piece of proof. Most hotels run a rolling overwrite on their CCTV systems — commonly thirty to sixty days, sometimes less. In this case, the police search in February 2026 would have preserved the most relevant video as part of the criminal warrant, but the surrounding weeks of footage showing the pattern of activity at the rooms — the steady stream of men, the cash transactions, the housekeeping refusals — may already be in the gap. The hotel’s internal video retention policy and the actual system in use need to be identified immediately. We send a litigation-hold letter that names the specific system, the specific date range, and the specific rooms.
The key-card access logs are next. Every time a key card was used to open a room door, the system records it. Those logs show the parade of men through the rooms on any given night. They show the same card being used at 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. They show a pattern that no jury can dismiss as innocent hotel turnover. Hotels purge these logs as part of routine system maintenance, often on a ninety-day or shorter cycle. Some systems archive for longer. The clock starts now.
Front-desk records matter too. Check-in and check-out times, payment method (cash versus credit), guest identification on file, special requests, and any notes flagged by the front-desk staff. The hotel’s own reservation and property-management system keeps this data. It is not held forever.
The housekeeping logs are central. The federal Trafficking Victims Protection framework and the industry-recognized red flags for trafficking include frequent refusals of housekeeping, “Do Not Disturb” signs that stay up for days, and excessive requests for towels and linens. Housekeeping staff are often the first hotel employees to recognize that something is wrong in a particular room. Their notes, their shift reports, their complaints to management — all of it is evidence.
The police call-for-service records for the property are public records. They show how many times the hotel has called 911 and how many times the police have been called about activity in the parking lot, the hallways, the rooms. These records prove the hotel had notice of prior problems. They are obtained through a Michigan Freedom of Information Act request to the Southfield Police Department and to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office.
The 911 audio recordings are durable, but the dispatch records attached to them can be moved or archived. Preserve them now.
The housekeeping and front-desk staff who worked the relevant shifts are the human evidence. Witnesses change jobs, move out of state, forget details, become unreachable. We need to identify and interview them while the case is fresh.
For the robbery victim specifically, the medical records from the hospital where the victim was treated, the police report, the inventory of stolen property, and the photographs of any injuries are all part of the proof. So is the cell phone, which may contain the text messages or app communications that led the victim to the hotel. Your phone is evidence. We will work with you to preserve it properly.
The takeaway: the evidence does not wait. The first move we make on your case is the preservation letter. We do not wait for a retainer. We do not wait for the discovery phase. The day you call us, we are sending letters to the hotel, its parent company, the property management company if there is one, the security contractor, and the relevant police agencies, demanding preservation of every record identified above. We are also issuing a litigation hold to anyone we have reason to believe has relevant evidence.
How Much Is a Case Like This Worth
The value of a negligent security or TVPRA case against a hotel in Michigan depends on the severity of the harm. We work with life-care planners, forensic economists, and treating clinicians to build a damages model that is specific to your case rather than relying on industry averages.
For a robbery victim with non-catastrophic injuries — bruises, a broken bone, a concussion, a few weeks of lost work — the recovery typically falls in the range of $250,000 to $1,000,000. That number reflects the medical bills, the lost wages, the pain and suffering, and the psychological impact of being robbed in a place you paid to be safe. A jury in Oakland County considering a hotel’s failure to protect a guest from a violent crime inside the hotel will return verdicts at or above this range.
For a more serious robbery — one involving significant physical injury, extended hospitalization, ongoing therapy, or permanent scarring — the range moves higher, often $1,000,000 to $2,500,000. Where the robbery aggravates a pre-existing condition, where the victim cannot return to work, or where the psychological injuries are lasting, the numbers continue to climb.
For a trafficking survivor’s case, the damages are wider. A trafficking survivor can recover for the full course of the trafficking: the commercial sex acts she was forced to perform, the drugs she was forced to take, the beatings, the isolation, the lost wages she would have earned but for the trafficking, the cost of the therapy and the treatment she will need for years to come, and the human cost of the years taken from her. The federal TVPRA does not cap damages, and the case-value range for a trafficking case against a major hotel brand — where the hotel knew or should have known about the trafficking and continued to rent rooms — runs into the multi-millions. Our experience and the published verdicts in this space show that $3,500,000 and higher is achievable, particularly where the hotel’s conduct was knowing or in reckless disregard of the trafficking.
Punitive damages are also available in Michigan for both the negligent security case and the TVPRA case. Punitive damages are designed to punish the defendant and deter the conduct from happening again. Where the hotel knew about the trafficking or the security failures and did nothing, punitive damages are a real and significant part of the case.
We will not promise a number to you at the first call. We will tell you what the ranges look like, and we will tell you what the realistic ceiling is for your specific harm. The number we go after in your case is built from your medical records, your wage history, your therapist’s testimony, your economist’s projections, and your own account of what was taken from you.
The Insurance Adjuster Playbook — And How We Counter Every Move
Within days of the robbery report — and certainly within days of any civil case being filed — the hotel’s insurance company will reach out. The adjuster will be polite, professional, and friendly. The adjuster will also be working from a script. We want you to know the script so you can recognize each play the moment it is run.
Play One: The Recorded Statement. The adjuster will call and ask you to “tell us what happened” so the hotel can “process the claim.” The call is being recorded. The questions are designed to get you to say things that minimize the hotel’s fault, to describe the area you were in when you were robbed, to agree to statements about your own conduct, and to commit to a version of events before you have spoken to a lawyer. We have seen adjuster-recorded statements used to lock victims into a story that is technically true but strategically incomplete. The counter is simple: do not give a recorded statement. Tell the adjuster you will cooperate fully once you have retained counsel, and refer the adjuster to us. That is your right under Michigan law and it does not hurt your case.
Play Two: The Quick Check. The adjuster will offer a fast settlement, often before the full extent of your injuries is known. A few thousand dollars to close out a robbery case before the MRI results come back, before the orthopedic follow-up, before the therapist’s diagnosis of post-traumatic stress. The number is calibrated to be just enough to seem reasonable and just small enough to be a bargain for the hotel. The counter: do not sign anything before you have a complete medical picture. The full value of your case includes the medical care you will need, not just the care you have already received. We have seen clients offered a $5,000 quick check who, three months later, needed surgery that cost $40,000 and left them with a permanent injury.
Play Three: The Comparative-Fault Pitch. The adjuster will suggest that you were partly at fault for going to the hotel to meet a sex worker, that the robbery was the result of your own bad judgment, that no hotel could have prevented it, and that you were the author of your own misfortune. Michigan’s modified comparative-fault rule reduces recovery by your percentage of fault, but it does not bar it unless you are more than fifty percent at fault. A jury in Oakland County is asked to look at the conduct of the hotel, not the conduct of the guest. The counter: we are not ashamed of the fact that our client went to a hotel. The hotel was running a room. The hotel took the money. The hotel had a duty regardless of why the guest was there, and the hotel failed at that duty. The hotel cannot profit from a guest’s business and then blame the guest when its own security fails.
There are more plays. The adjuster will ask for your social media passwords. The adjuster will ask you to see all of your medical records going back years. The adjuster will ask you to sign a medical authorization that allows the hotel’s lawyers to pull your entire medical history. None of these are appropriate before you have a lawyer. We handle every one of them.
Michigan’s Statute of Limitations — The Clock That Does Not Stop
Michigan’s general statute of limitations for personal injury is three years. Under Mich. Comp. Laws § 600.5805, a person who has been injured by the wrongful act of another has three years from the date of the injury to file a civil lawsuit. The clock is strict. If you miss it, your case is dead — no matter how strong the evidence, no matter how obvious the hotel’s fault.
For the federal TVPRA trafficking case, the clock is ten years — and ten years from the survivor’s eighteenth birthday if the survivor was a minor during the trafficking. The federal clock is more generous, but the two clocks run together. The earlier-filed case controls.
Wrongful death claims under Michigan law carry their own three-year limit under Mich. Comp. Laws § 600.5827, measured from the date of death.
The discovery rule applies in some Michigan cases — meaning the clock may start when you discover the injury and its cause rather than when the injury occurred. The discovery rule is most often applied in medical malpractice and in cases involving concealed or latent harm. We will analyze your specific facts and tell you what clock applies to your case.
The point is this: do not wait. The statute of limitations is a one-way door. We would rather you call us six months early and have us tell you that you have plenty of time than have you call us six months late and have us tell you that you do not.
Who Can Be Held Liable — The Hotel, the Owner, the Management Company, the Brand
Hotels in the Southfield area are usually operated by a layered corporate structure. The brand you see on the sign is often a franchise of a national hotel company. The actual owner of the building is usually a limited liability company. The management company that staffs the front desk, runs the housekeeping, and contracts the security may be a separate entity. The security contractor — the company whose employees patrol the parking lot and monitor the cameras — may be yet another entity.
We name all of them. The hotel that took your money owed you a duty of care. The owner of the building profited from your stay. The management company ran the operation. The security contractor provided the protection that failed. Each one of them is a potential defendant, and each one of them has insurance that the others do not.
The Michigan case will be filed in Oakland County Circuit Court, which is the proper venue for a negligence action arising out of a hotel incident in Southfield. The federal TVPRA case will be filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division. We evaluate which forum is right for your case and file where the law and the facts put you in the strongest position.
The hotel’s coverage is typically a Commercial General Liability policy with limits in the millions of dollars, plus an umbrella layer above that. The hotel may also carry specialized coverage for assault and battery, for human trafficking exposure, and for vicarious-liability claims arising out of criminal acts on the property. The exact coverage picture is developed in discovery, but hotels in commercial corridors like Telegraph Road and the Lodge Freeway carry real insurance — and that insurance is the source of recovery for most plaintiffs.
What Damages Are Available
The categories of damages in a Michigan premises liability case and a federal TVPRA case are similar in structure, with some differences.
Economic damages include past medical expenses, future medical expenses, past lost wages, future lost earning capacity, and out-of-pocket costs. For a trafficking survivor, economic damages also include the wages she would have earned but for the trafficking, the cost of the drug addiction she developed as a result of the trafficking, and the cost of the years of therapy she will need.
Non-economic damages include pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of consortium, and the human cost of what happened. For a trafficking survivor, the non-economic damages are often the largest component of the recovery. The loss of freedom, the loss of bodily autonomy, the loss of the years of her life that were taken from her, and the lasting impact of the trauma are compensable under both Michigan law and federal law.
Punitive damages are available in both forums. In Michigan, punitive damages are awarded when the defendant’s conduct shows malice, gross negligence, or a willful and wanton disregard for the safety of others. In the federal TVPRA case, punitive damages are available where the defendant’s conduct was knowing, reckless, or in conscious disregard of the trafficking. A hotel that rents rooms to a known trafficking operation and then collects the room revenue is the kind of conduct punitive damages are designed to reach.
The damages are not limited to the harm that was foreseeable at the time of the trafficking. The damages include the full consequences of the trafficking, including the medical and psychological consequences that emerged years later. Michigan recognizes the “eggshell plaintiff” rule — a defendant takes the plaintiff as he or she finds her. A trafficking survivor who was particularly vulnerable, or who suffered consequences worse than the average survivor, is entitled to compensation for the full scope of her harm.
How the Case Moves From Here
The first step is the call. We will hear your story. We will tell you honestly whether the facts you describe fit the framework of a Michigan negligent security case, a federal TVPRA case, or both. We will explain the timeline, the evidence we will need, and the realistic value range for your specific facts.
If you decide to move forward, we work on contingency. You pay nothing up front. We advance the costs of the case — the filing fees, the records requests, the expert witnesses, the depositions. We get paid only if we win. If we do not win, you owe us nothing for the time or the costs. That is the deal. It is the same deal we have offered to injured people in Michigan and across the country for over two decades.
We will immediately send the preservation letters. We will file the complaint. We will pursue discovery. We will take the depositions of the hotel’s general manager, the head of security, the front-desk staff who worked the relevant shifts, the housekeeping staff, and the security contractor’s employees. We will subpoena the police reports, the 911 audio, the CAD logs, and the surveillance video. We will retain a security expert to testify about what the hotel should have done and what it failed to do. We will retain a forensic economist to build the damages model. We will retain a life-care planner if your injuries require it.
We will try the case if the hotel will not pay a fair settlement. We have tried cases against hotels, against national brands, against franchisors, against property owners, and against security contractors. We are not afraid of a jury in Oakland County.
Who We Are
Attorney911 is The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC, a trial firm that takes commercial-vehicle, catastrophic-injury, and wrongful-death cases in Michigan and across the country. We have been in business since July 18, 2001 — more than two decades of courtroom work and recovery. Our total recoveries exceed $50,000,000.
Ralph Manginello is our Managing Partner. He has practiced law for 27 years, since his admission to the Texas Bar in November 1998. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He earned his J.D. from South Texas College of Law Houston in 1998 and his B.A. in Journalism and Public Relations from the University of Texas at Austin. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, and he is still the kind of lawyer who reads the fine print. He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, the Houston Bar Association, the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the Pro Bono College of the State Bar of Texas. He founded this firm on the belief that an injured person deserves the same quality of representation as a corporation.
Lupe Peña is our Associate Attorney. He has practiced law for 13 years, since his admission to the Texas Bar in December 2012. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He earned his J.D. from South Texas College of Law Houston in May 2012 and his B.B.A. in International Business from Saint Mary’s University in San Antonio in 2005. Before joining us, Lupe was a defense attorney inside a national insurance-defense firm. He worked on the side of the insurance carriers. He knows how claims are priced, how reserves are set, how the recorded-statement call is engineered, how surveillance is conducted, and how the defense delays and devalues cases like yours. He now uses that knowledge for the injured. Lupe is fluent in Spanish, and he conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. Hablamos Español.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
Our work has been recognized by Google reviewers (4.9 stars, more than 250 reviews), by the Texas legal community, and by the families we have helped. We are on the side of the injured person, full stop, every time. We do not represent corporations. We do not represent insurance companies. We represent people.
What You Should Do Right Now
If you were robbed inside the Southfield hotel described in this article, or if you are a survivor of the trafficking that this investigation uncovered, the steps below are the right next moves. They are not a substitute for legal advice, but they are the right first moves.
Get to a safe place. The hotel that allowed this is not a safe place. If you are still at the hotel or anywhere near the people involved, leave. Go to a place where you can think clearly.
Write down what you remember. The first twenty-four hours after a robbery or after leaving a trafficking situation are when memories are freshest. Write down the dates, the times, the names you remember, the faces, the room numbers, the vehicles, the cash amounts. Do not edit. Do not worry about getting it perfect. Write.
Preserve your phone. Your text messages, your call history, your app communications, your location history — all of it is evidence. Do not delete anything. If you need a new phone, get one, but do not destroy the old one.
Get medical care. If you were hurt — physically or psychologically — see a doctor. The medical record is part of your case. If you have been traumatized, see a therapist. A licensed mental-health professional can document the psychological injuries that the insurance company will try to minimize.
Report to the police if you have not already. The criminal case and the civil case are separate, but the police report is part of the evidence in the civil case.
Do not give a recorded statement to the hotel’s insurance adjuster. Do not sign anything. Do not accept a quick settlement. Do not post about the case on social media.
Call us. 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free, and you pay us nothing unless we win. We are open 24 hours a day, every day. Hablamos Español. We will hear your story, tell you honestly what we can do, and get to work the same day.
Frequently Asked Questions
I was robbed at a Southfield hotel after going to meet a sex worker. Can I still sue the hotel?
Yes. Michigan law does not bar you from recovering because of your reason for being at the hotel. The hotel took your money, gave you a key, and had a duty of reasonable care. If the hotel’s security failed and that failure allowed you to be robbed, the hotel is liable. Michigan’s modified comparative-fault rule reduces your recovery by your percentage of fault but does not bar it unless you were more than fifty percent at fault. A jury in Oakland County is going to look at the hotel’s conduct, not your reason for being there. We will fight any attempt by the hotel to use your reason for being there against you.
What is the difference between the criminal case and a civil case for me?
The criminal case is brought by the State of Michigan. The purpose is to punish the people who committed the robbery and the trafficking. You are a witness in the criminal case, not a party. A criminal conviction helps your civil case but is not required for you to win the civil case. The civil case is brought by you, against the hotel. The purpose of the civil case is to compensate you for the harm you suffered. The two cases run on separate tracks, and we will pursue the civil case regardless of what happens in the criminal case.
I am a survivor of the trafficking that the Southfield police found. What are my rights?
You have a federal civil right of action under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 1595. You can sue the trafficker and you can sue anyone who knowingly benefited from the trafficking — including the hotel. The federal statute of limitations is ten years from the cause of action, or ten years from your eighteenth birthday if you were trafficked as a minor. You also have a Michigan civil case under Michigan common law and under the Michigan Human Trafficking Victims Compensation Act. We can file in federal court in the Eastern District of Michigan or in state court in Oakland County, depending on which forum is right for your case. The civil case is confidential if you want it to be. We do not name you in the public filings without your consent.
How long do I have to file a lawsuit in Michigan?
The general Michigan personal-injury statute of limitations is three years under Mich. Comp. Laws § 600.5805. Wrongful death claims carry a separate three-year limit under Mich. Comp. Laws § 600.5827. Some claims involving latent injury may be subject to the discovery rule, which starts the clock when you discover the injury and its cause. Federal TVPRA claims have a ten-year statute of limitations. The earlier you call, the more options you have.
How do I prove the hotel knew or should have known about the trafficking?
A combination of evidence types. Police records for the property — calls for service, incident reports, prior arrests in the parking lot or in the rooms. Prior lawsuits against the hotel. Industry red flags that the hotel staff saw and ignored — cash by the hour, refusal of housekeeping, “Do Not Disturb” signs for days, a parade of different men through one room. Internal hotel communications — emails from housekeeping to management about suspicious activity, memos about rooms that should not be rented, notes from the front desk. The training the hotel provided to its staff on human trafficking recognition. The hotel’s prior settlements of similar claims. We develop this evidence in discovery, and the hotel’s own records are usually the most damning.
What if the hotel says it had security cameras and a security guard?
We will subpoena the camera footage and the security guard’s logs. We will depose the security guard. We will depose the hotel’s director of security. We will find out whether the cameras were working, whether anyone was monitoring them, whether the footage was preserved, and whether the security guard was actually patrolling the relevant areas. A hotel that has cameras and a security guard on paper but does not actually use them to prevent crime has the same exposure as a hotel that has nothing. The question is never whether the security existed on paper. The question is whether the security worked.
How much is my case worth?
That depends on the severity of your harm. For a robbery victim with non-catastrophic injuries, the range is typically $250,000 to $1,000,000. For a more serious robbery with significant injury, $1,000,000 to $2,500,000. For a trafficking survivor with full damages, the case can reach $3,500,000 and higher where the hotel’s conduct was knowing or in reckless disregard of the trafficking. Punitive damages can push the number higher in both types of cases. We will give you an honest assessment of your specific case value after we have reviewed your medical records and talked through the facts with you.
Will the hotel’s insurance company pay my medical bills as I go, or do I have to wait until the case resolves?
The hotel’s liability insurance does not usually pay medical bills as they come in. That is what your own health insurance is for, if you have it. If you do not have health insurance, we can help you find providers who will treat you on a lien basis — meaning they get paid out of the settlement when the case resolves. We do not let the absence of insurance stop you from getting the care you need. We do not let the bills pile up unreimbursed. We work with providers who understand that the case is the source of payment and who are willing to wait.
What if I do not have a lot of evidence right now?
That is normal. Most clients do not have the full evidence when they first call. What we need from you is your story. The evidence we develop in the case — the hotel’s records, the police records, the surveillance footage if it still exists, the witness interviews, the expert opinions — that is our job. You give us the facts. We give you the legal case. We have built cases from less than you have right now.
How do I get started?
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. There is no obligation. We will talk through what happened, what the hotel’s liability looks like, what the evidence picture looks like, and what the realistic value range is for your case. We will tell you honestly whether we can help and what the next steps are. We work on contingency — you pay nothing up front and nothing unless we win. Hablamos Español. We are here when you are ready.
What Happens When You Call
When you call 1-888-ATTY-911, you reach a real person at a Texas-based trial firm that has been doing this work since 2001. We are not a call center. We are not a referral service. We are the lawyers who will handle your case.
We will schedule a free consultation — by phone, by video, or in person if you are in the Houston or Austin area and willing to come to us, or via a local-counsel arrangement if you are in Michigan. We will listen to what happened. We will ask the right questions. We will tell you what we think, and we will tell you what we do not know.
If you decide to retain us, we will send the preservation letters the same day. We will open the file. We will begin gathering the records. We will retain the experts. We will move the case forward.
If you decide not to retain us, that is your right. We will still tell you what to do next. We will still tell you what the statute of limitations is. We will still tell you what the insurance company is going to try. We do not gatekeep the information. The consultation is free for a reason.
Our Office and How to Reach Us
Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC
Houston (primary): 1177 West Loop S, Suite 1600, Houston, TX 77027 — serves Harris, Montgomery, Fort Bend, Brazoria, and Galveston counties.
Houston (secondary): 1635 Dunlavy Street, Houston, TX 77006-1007.
Austin: 316 West 12th Street, Suite 311, Austin, TX 78701-1844 — serves Travis, Williamson, Hays, and Bastrop counties.
Beaumont (Golden Triangle): client meetings by appointment — serves Jefferson, Orange, and Hardin counties.
For the East Michigan case handled by our Michigan trial team, we work with local counsel and appear pro hac vice as the facts and the rules of the Eastern District of Michigan or the Oakland County Circuit Court require.
To set up a free consultation, call 1-888-ATTY-911, visit our contact page, or reach us at our direct line (713) 528-9070. Hablamos Español.
The call is free. The consultation is free. There is no fee unless we win. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.