We Meet You Where You Are
If you are reading this, someone you love was attacked inside a place that took her money and promised safety. We have worked with survivors and the families of survivors across Pennsylvania — the husbands who got the 3 a.m. call, the parents who drove through the night, the women who fought back with everything they had and then had to sit across from a defense lawyer who treated what happened to them as an “incident” on an incident report. We know what the next weeks feel like. We know the questions that keep you up at night. We know the insurance adjuster has already called, and we know how that call goes.
This page is built for what happened at the Nittany Budget Motel on Cato Avenue in Ferguson Township, Centre County — and for what happens too often, in too many budget properties, across Pennsylvania. We will walk you through the Pennsylvania law that protects you, the motel that may owe you an answer, the evidence that is already starting to disappear, the insurance tactics you will face, and the real value of a case like yours. We will not promise you a number we cannot guarantee. We will tell you the truth about how these cases work and what we can do about yours.
The crime was prosecuted. The civil case — the one that pays for the rest of her life — is a different fight, with different rules, against different defendants, and it does not start in a Centre County courtroom. It starts with the preservation letters we send the week you call.
Why the Motel Is on the Hook
A guest who pays for a room is not a member of the public walking past a building. She is an invitee under Pennsylvania premises-liability law — the highest category of visitor the law recognizes. A motel owes her a duty to keep the premises reasonably safe from foreseeable criminal acts of third parties. That duty is not theoretical. It is the same duty that makes a hotel answerable when an assault happens in a parking lot the hotel knows is unlit, when a door lock has been broken for months, when the front-desk staff routinely wave in strangers without checking IDs, when prior calls to police have flagged the property as a magnet for commercial sex activity, or when management has looked the other way on cash-by-the-hour rentals and the predictable conduct that follows.
The motel’s defense will be the same defense every negligent-security defendant runs: that the attack was the work of a single criminal and not foreseeable; that the motel could not have prevented it; that the survivor should have known better than to be in the room. We have heard every version of that defense. We know how to dismantle it. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has long held that a possessor of land who holds it open to the public owes a duty to protect invitees from foreseeable criminal conduct, and that the question of foreseeability is almost always a question for the jury once the evidence is in. Motels do not get to keep their operating model and disclaim its consequences.
Three legal theories carry this case:
1. Negligent security. The motel failed to provide reasonable security measures against foreseeable criminal acts — including the criminal acts of third parties like the man who paid for the room. What “reasonable” means turns on the property’s history, the neighborhood, the staffing, the lighting, the locks, the surveillance, and what management knew or should have known. If prior incidents at the property, prior police calls, prior complaints, prior cash transactions, or prior red flags put the motel on notice that the danger was foreseeable, the duty was breached. Pennsylvania courts consistently leave this question to the jury, which means a defendant who wants summary judgment has to show, as a matter of law, that no reasonable jury could find the danger foreseeable. That is a hard row to hoe when the property has a history.
2. Negligent hiring, retention, and supervision — to the extent the motel had its own staff involved in the transaction, and negligent entrustment of the room itself to a known or knowable dangerous user. A motel that rents rooms to the same person repeatedly, in patterns consistent with commercial sexual exploitation, and never flags the pattern to law enforcement, has not merely failed to screen — it has profited from the danger.
3. Premises liability under the Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 343 and 344. A motel that knows, or has reason to know, that its premises are being used for criminal activity and does nothing to stop it has breached the duty of reasonable care owed to every lawful guest on the property — including the survivor who walked in trusting the brand on the sign.
In addition to the motel itself, the analysis runs up and down the corporate chain: the franchise brand if the property is branded, the property-management company if it is third-party managed, the owner of the real estate, the security-services contractor if one was engaged and failed to perform, and any parent holding company that has enough control of the premises to owe a direct duty. Pennsylvania’s negligence framework permits pleading against each of them. The fight is not who the survivor sues first — it is who among them has the insurance and the assets to actually pay the recovery she is owed.
The Evidence That Is Already Disappearing
We move on the evidence in the first days, not the first months. A negligent-security case is a documentary case. The proof lives in records, and records have clocks.
Hotel guest folio and key-card records. Every time a guest swipes a key card, the property-management system logs the timestamp, the room number, and the duration of access. For a property that rents to the same customer repeatedly, in cash, on short stays, with a pattern of high traffic and unusual hours, that log is the documentary spine of the case. It is also the property’s own system, and absent a preservation demand, it is subject to routine archive and deletion cycles. Demand that record now.
Surveillance video. Most budget motels run some level of surveillance — lobby, parking lot, hallway cameras. Footage is routinely overwritten on a rolling basis, often in 30 days or less. We have seen cases where the hallway camera captured the entire incident and the recording was gone within three weeks because no one asked the motel to save it. The preservation letter goes out the week you call.
Police call-for-service and incident history. Centre County and Ferguson Township law-enforcement records for the property — every prior 911 call, every prior report, every prior officer dispatch — are public records and are the most powerful proof of foreseeability. They are also subject to agency retention schedules. We pull them early.
Housekeeping and maintenance logs. A pattern of refused housekeeping, repeated “do not disturb” requests for days at a time, or maintenance entries flagging unusual foot traffic can establish what the motel knew and when.
The criminal investigative file. The Ferguson Township Police investigation produced photographs of the injuries, the handcuffs recovered from the vehicle, the motel receipt, and the witness statements. We work to obtain the full file — typically through a subpoena or Right-to-Know request once criminal proceedings allow, or via a civil subpoena after the criminal case has resolved.
The motel company’s internal incident and complaint records. If a guest has previously complained about this individual, if housekeeping has reported concerns, if the front-desk clerk recognized the man, those records exist and they are the smoking gun. They also disappear fastest because they are internal.
The survivor’s own contemporaneous record. The hospital records from the night of the assault. The rape-kit / SAFE exam documentation, if one was performed — these have their own short retention windows and must be preserved immediately. The first counselor she saw. The first friend she called. The texts she sent that night. These are the proof that lives in her life, and we work with her to lock it down before any of it ages out.
The defense wants the clock to run out. We do not let it.
What the Case Is Worth — and Why the Number Is Not the Number You See on TV
We will not quote you a number we cannot guarantee. We will tell you the architecture of how a case like this is valued, so that when the defense makes an offer, you know what you are looking at.
The economic layer is the part we can put a receipt on: the medical bills from the hospital the night of the assault; the months of therapy she did not ask to need; the EMDR, the medication management, the psychiatric care for the depression and PTSD that came after; the lost wages from the weeks she could not work and the reduced capacity in the months that followed; the future therapy she will need for years. A life-care planner — an expert we retain — projects the lifetime treatment stream and an economist reduces it to a present-day lump sum.
The non-economic layer is the part the receipt cannot capture: the terror that resurfaces without warning; the relationship with her partner that became a different relationship; the friendships that could not hold what she needed them to hold; the loss of the career trajectory she was on before the attack; the lifelong shadow that will sit over every hotel room, every stranger, every dark hallway for the rest of her life. In Pennsylvania, this is recoverable, and juries in this Commonwealth do not stint on it when the proof is clean and the defendant is plainly at fault.
The punitive layer is the part that punishes the motel for what it knew and did not do. Pennsylvania permits punitive damages where the defendant’s conduct shows a reckless indifference to the rights of others. A motel that rented rooms to a pattern of commercial sexual exploitation, that ignored police calls, that looked the other way while its brand was used as a hunting ground — that motel can be made to pay not just for what it cost this woman, but for what its indifference was worth.
The case value range in a motel negligent-security case of this severity — attempted strangulation, sexual assault, impersonated officer, foreseeable third-party criminal conduct — runs from the low $250,000 range on the modest end, where liability is contested and damages are limited, to $1.5 million and well above where the proof is strong, the pattern is documented, and the motel had clear notice. Cases with strong punitive facts and lifetime psychological injury have resolved for significantly more. The exact number in any case is determined by the jury — and by what we can prove in front of one.
We will give you our honest range once we know the specifics of your case. We will not inflate it. We will not promise it. We will tell you what we would do in your shoes.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
What We Do First, and What We Do Next
The first 72 hours after a survivor calls us are the most consequential hours in the case. Here is what we actually do — not what we promise, what we do.
Within 24 hours of intake: we send litigation-hold / preservation letters to the motel, the parent company, the security-services contractor, the surveillance vendor, and the property-management company if one exists. Each letter identifies the specific records that must be preserved — surveillance video with date ranges, key-card and PMS logs, the incident report, housekeeping records, employee schedules, prior incident logs, prior police calls, prior insurance claims, and any internal communications about the survivor or the attacker. We also send a preservation demand to the motel where the attack occurred. We do not wait for a subpoena. The federal spoliation doctrine — and Pennsylvania’s analogous tort of intentional spoliation of evidence — both reward the party who asked in writing, in time.
Within the first week: we pull the criminal docket from the Centre County Court of Common Pleas and the docket from the magisterial district judge who handled the preliminary hearing. We file Right-to-Know requests with Ferguson Township and Centre County for the police investigative file. We retain a private investigator to photograph the motel and the surrounding corridor while the layout is still as it was. We retain a forensic security expert to evaluate what reasonable security measures the motel should have had in place. We retain a forensic economist and a life-care planner to begin building the damages model. And we sit down with the survivor — and, where she wants it, with her family — to walk through what the case will look like, month by month, for the next two years.
Through the first 90 days: we complete the medical-records collection, the employment-records pull, and the insurance-coverage investigation. We identify every potential defendant — the operating motel entity, the franchisor if branded, the property owner, the holding company, the security contractor — and we file the civil complaint. We do not file until the medical record is complete and the damages model is mature, because the defense will demand the damages proof with the complaint, and an early number anchored in incomplete records becomes the ceiling the defense will spend the next two years trying to drive down.
From filing forward: discovery. Depositions of the motel manager, the front-desk clerk on duty, the housekeeping staff, the security-services vendor, the prior-incident records custodian. Independent medical examination, defended aggressively. Expert reports from our security expert, our treating providers, our life-care planner, our economist. Mediation, usually a year in — with eyes open and a real number on the table. Trial, if the case does not resolve. We do not settle cheap and we do not posture high. We prepare every case as if it will be tried, because that is what makes a defense firm pay fair value.
You can reach our intake line at 1-888-ATTY-911 or (713) 528-9070 any time. Cell: (713) 443-4781. Email: ralph@atty911.com or lupe@atty911.com.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue a motel in Pennsylvania for a sexual assault that happened in a rented room?
Yes. Pennsylvania law treats motel guests as invitees, who are owed the highest duty of care a possessor of land owes anyone. That duty includes protection from foreseeable criminal acts of third parties. A motel that knew or should have known that criminal conduct was occurring on or around its property, and that failed to take reasonable security measures, can be held liable for the resulting assault. The motel is not automatically responsible for every crime on its premises, but it is responsible for the foreseeable ones it had the power to prevent. We build the case on the property’s prior history, the motel’s staffing and surveillance, the corridor’s crime profile, and what the motel knew and when.
Who is the right defendant in a motel negligent-security case in Pennsylvania?
Every entity whose conduct contributed to the danger and whose insurance or assets can pay a recovery. That typically means the operating motel entity, the property owner if a different LLC, the security-services contractor if one was engaged, the franchisor or brand if the property is part of a chain, and the attacker personally. Pennsylvania’s fair-share statute, 42 Pa. C.S. § 7102, generally limits joint and several liability to a defendant’s proportionate share, with limited exceptions — so identifying every solvent defendant from day one is part of how we protect the recovery.
How long do I have to file a negligent-security lawsuit in Pennsylvania?
The general statute of limitations is two years from the date the cause of action accrued under 42 Pa. C.S. § 5524. For an assault case, that is the date of the assault, not the date of the criminal plea or sentencing. There are narrow exceptions — minority tolling for plaintiffs who were minors at the time, latent-injury tolling under limited circumstances — but they are exceptions, not defaults. If two years have passed since September 2024 and no complaint has been filed, the case is presumptively time-barred. The defense will raise the SOL on day one of the answer. The earlier you call, the more options you keep.
I already gave a recorded statement to the insurance company. Have I ruined my case?
No. A recorded statement is rarely fatal, even when it is poorly handled. What matters is whether anything in the statement can be used against you — admissions about prior conduct, minimization of injury, speculation about fault. We obtain the transcript, identify the exposures, and build around them. In some cases the statement helps us more than it hurts, because it captures the raw account before the survivor had time to be coached by anyone. Do not panic. Call us.
What is the case worth?
The honest answer is that the case is worth what a Pennsylvania jury awards after hearing the proof, and we cannot predict a jury. The case-value architecture runs from the economic damages (medical, therapy, lost wages, future care) on the bottom, through the non-economic damages (pain, suffering, loss of enjoyment, loss of consortium) in the middle, to punitive damages on top where the facts support them. In motel negligent-security cases of this severity, recoveries in the $250,000 to $1.5 million+ range are achievable, and cases with strong punitive facts and lifetime psychological injury have resolved for more. We give you our honest range once we have the medical and economic proof in hand — and we do not inflate it.
What if I was drinking or using drugs when this happened? Will that destroy my case?
Not necessarily. Pennsylvania’s modified comparative-fault rule bars recovery only if the jury finds the survivor 51% or more at fault. Voluntary intoxication does not equal comparative fault for an assault — the question is whether her conduct rose to the level of being more than half the legal cause of her own injuries. In our experience, Pennsylvania juries, properly instructed, do not allocate meaningful fault to the survivor of an impersonated-police strangulation. We have built a career on making sure they understand what “fault” means in this context.
Can I sue the attacker personally even though he is in prison?
Yes. We name him as a defendant. His criminal conviction is admissible in the civil case under Pennsylvania law, which streamlines the proof of what happened. He is almost certainly uncollectible, but naming him preserves every theory, ties the civil case to the criminal record, and tells the jury who did this.
Will I have to testify in court?
Most cases resolve before trial. Of those that do not, yes — you will likely testify, and we prepare you for it with the same rigor we bring to depositions. Our job is to make sure the jury sees you as a person, not as a plaintiff; as a survivor, not as a symbol; as a witness whose account is consistent and whose injuries are real. We depose the defense witnesses first, so by the time you take the stand, the jury has already heard the motel’s story and seen how it holds up.
How long will my case take?
A motel negligent-security case in Pennsylvania typically takes 18 to 36 months from filing to resolution — sometimes less when liability is clear and the insurance carrier wants to settle, sometimes longer when the defense fights every step. We move as fast as the court calendar and the defense’s willingness to cooperate allow. We do not delay to run up bills; we delay only when delay serves the case.
What does it cost to hire Attorney911 for a case like this?
Nothing upfront. We work on contingency: 33.33% before trial, 40% if the case goes to trial. You owe us nothing unless we win. The free consultation is free, the case evaluation is free, and our 24/7 staff — not an answering service — answers the phone when you call.
What can I do right now to protect my case if I am not ready to call yet?
Three things. First, write down everything you remember about the motel, the room number if you have it, the front-desk staff you saw, the vehicles in the parking lot, and the time of day. Second, do not post about the assault, the motel, or the case on social media — defense investigators will see it, and even a tone-deaf joke can be quoted out of context. Third, preserve every medical record, every therapy bill, every text you sent that night, and the contact information of every friend or family member you told early. Then call us, because the evidence clock has already started.
What about the criminal case — how does that affect the civil case?
It helps. Robert C. Wason pleaded guilty to attempted strangulation in March 2025 and was sentenced April 14, 2025. Under Pennsylvania law, his conviction is admissible in the civil case and is competent evidence of the facts necessary to support it. The criminal conviction does not substitute for the civil proof — we still have to prove the motel was negligent — but it takes the question of “did this happen, and who did it” off the table. The civil case then becomes about what the motel knew, when it knew it, and what it did or did not do about it.
What if I am not the survivor but a family member — can I bring the case?
Yes, in defined circumstances. A spouse can bring a loss-of-consortium claim for the loss of the marital relationship. A parent of a minor survivor can bring the case on the survivor’s behalf. Pennsylvania’s wrongful-death and survival statutes (20 Pa. C.S. § 3371 et seq.) control when the assault proves fatal. We will tell you who has standing in your specific situation during the free consultation.
Does it matter that the attacker used an online ad to lure the survivor?
It matters in two directions. First, it establishes a pattern: motels that allow their rooms to be used for commercial sexual exploitation, advertised through online platforms, are on notice of exactly the conduct that produced this assault. Second, it raises a separate set of questions about the platform that hosted the ad — questions we evaluate as part of the discovery strategy. The motel cannot use the existence of the ad to disclaim its own duty; the ad is the proof of what the property was being used for, and the motel profited from that use.
What about the surveillance video from the motel — is there any?
We do not know yet. Many budget motels run some level of surveillance; some do not. The preservation letter goes out the day you retain us, and the discovery process reveals what the motel actually had and whether it preserved it. Pennsylvania’s spoliation doctrine allows a jury to infer that destroyed evidence would have been unfavorable to the spoliator. We use that doctrine when the defense lets evidence die.
What happens if the motel has gone out of business or transferred its assets?
The corporate shield is not a defense to a known claim. Pennsylvania recognizes successor liability and fraudulent-transfer doctrines that allow a survivor to reach successor entities and, in some circumstances, the equity holders who stripped the assets. We investigate the corporate chain at intake and design the case from day one to account for the worst-case corporate posture.
Can a confidential settlement protect her identity?
Often, yes. Confidentiality terms in settlements are common in assault cases, and we negotiate them as a normal part of the resolution. The survivor’s privacy, her medical history, and her identity are protected to whatever extent the law and the agreement allow. We do not treat confidentiality as a windfall for the insurer — it is part of the deal, and we make sure the survivor has the final say on it.
What if I cannot afford the medical care I need right now?
We connect survivors to medical providers who treat on a lien basis — they get paid out of the recovery, not out of her pocket up front. Pennsylvania’s healthcare-lien statute governs how those liens are resolved from settlement proceeds, and we negotiate every one of them down. The survivor does not have to choose between getting the care she needs and protecting her case. Both happen.
Will this case end up in Centre County?
Probably not for the civil trial. The defence will remove to federal court if any defendant is diverse from the plaintiff and the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000 — the federal courts are familiar terrain for corporate defendants and are often where the insurer prefers to fight. Either way, we litigate where the case belongs and we do not let venue become a defense advantage.
What if the motel claims the survivor is a trespasser, not an invitee?
She paid for a room. The motel accepted her money. She is an invitee under any test — she entered at the express or implied invitation of the motel for the motel’s benefit. The motel cannot reclassify her to avoid its duty.
What about the survivor’s privacy — will the case become public?
Civil cases in Pennsylvania are presumptively public, but sensitive personal and medical details can be protected by protective order. We negotiate protective orders as a matter of course in assault cases. The survivor controls what becomes part of the public record beyond what the law requires.
Why a motel, and not just the attacker?
Because the attacker is almost always uncollectible. The motel is the entity that has insurance, that has assets, that has a duty, and that can be made to pay. The civil case exists because the survivor is going to need decades of medical and psychological care, and the attacker cannot fund it. The motel can, and under Pennsylvania law, in the right case, must.
What if the assault was at a different motel, or in a different state?
The architecture of the analysis is the same: invitee duty, foreseeability, prior-incident discovery, expert analysis of security protocols, insurance-coverage investigation, two-year SOL check, comparative-fault defense. We work the incident-state cases, and our trial team handles motel negligent-security matters across multiple states. Call us and we will tell you what your state’s law requires.
Does Attorney911 handle cases outside Pennsylvania?
Our trial team handles serious injury and wrongful-death cases in multiple jurisdictions. We do not pretend to have an office in every state — but the cases cross state lines every day, and we work them through co-counsel and pro hac vice admission where the case requires it. For a Centre County motel matter, our team handles the case directly. For a matter elsewhere, we will tell you who is the right firm to call.
Why We Do This Work
We do this work because the motel took her money and let her walk into a room with a man who had handcuffs and a plan. We do it because the criminal sentence, whatever its length, does not pay for the therapy she will need in 2027. We do it because insurance carriers have spent decades perfecting a system that delays, denies, and minimizes cases like hers, and the only way that system changes is one survivor at a time, one case at a time, one verdict at a time. We do it because when a motel rents a room and takes the cash, it is selling safety, and when it fails to deliver, it owes the cost.
Our trial team has been doing this work for more than two decades. Ralph and Lupe have spent their careers in the rooms where these cases are built — Ralph in courtrooms across federal and state jurisdictions, Lupe in the rooms where insurance carriers value claims and decide how much to pay. They are both trial lawyers, not intake specialists. They are the people who try the case if it does not settle, and that is why the case settles.
We handle these cases across Pennsylvania — including wrongful-death claims when the assault proves fatal, brain-injury cases when strangulation causes lasting cognitive damage, and the insurance-claim disputes that arise when carriers refuse to honor their coverage obligations. We do not promise a number. We promise the work.
Contact our intake line at 1-888-ATTY-911 or visit attorney911.com for a free, confidential consultation. No fee unless we win. Hablamos Español. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.