C.S. v. Inn of Naples Hotel

Decision Date17 May 2021
Docket NumberCase No: 2:20-cv-629-JES-MRM
PartiesC.S., Plaintiff, v. INN OF NAPLES HOTEL, LLC and INN OF NAPLES, LLC, Defendants.
CourtU.S. District Court — Middle District of Florida
OPINION AND ORDER

This matter comes before the Court on defendants' Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff's Complaint and Memorandum of Law in Support Thereof (Doc. #11) filed on October 12, 2020. Plaintiff filed an opposition (Doc. #21) on November 10, 2020. For the reasons set forth below, the motion is denied.

I.

The origins of this case began on October 30, 2019, when plaintiff and another alleged victim of sex trafficking filed a case in the Circuit Court of the Twentieth Judicial Circuit in and for Collier County, Florida. See S.Y. et al v. Naples Hotel Co. et al, Case No. 2:20-cv-118 (Doc. #1, p. 3). On December 31, 2019, the plaintiffs filed a First Amended Complaint which asserted ten claims against over forty defendants. Id. at (Doc. #1, pp. 2-4). The case was removed to federal court in February 2020. Id. at (Doc. #1). On April 15, 2020, the plaintiffs filed a Second Amended Complaint. Id. at (Doc. #85). On August 5, 2020, the undersigned denied various motions to dismiss, but determined severance of the parties was appropriate. S.Y. v. Naples Hotel Co., 476 F. Supp. 3d 1251, 1258-59 (M.D. Fla. 2020). Following the Court's severance order, plaintiff and the other alleged victim filed nearly thirty new actions against various defendants, including this case.

The Complaint (Doc. #1) in this case was filed on August 19, 2020, and alleges that between 2015 and February 2016, plaintiff C.S., a resident of Collier County, Florida, was a victim of continuous sex trafficking at the Inn of Naples, a place of public lodging, owned and operated by defendants Inn of Naples Hotel, LLC and Inn of Naples, LLC (collectively defendants). (Id. at ¶¶ 2, 13, 22, 25-26.)

The Complaint alleges the following six claims against "each and every Inn of Naples Defendant": (1) violation of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA), 18 U.S.C. § 1595; (2) violation of the Florida RICO statute, § 772.104, Florida Statutes; (3) premise liability; (4) negligent hiring, supervision, and retention; (5) negligent rescue; and (6) aiding and abetting, harboring, confining, coercion, and criminal enterprise. (Id., pp. 29-45.)

II.

The motions raise numerous arguments as to why the Complaint as whole, and each individual claim, should be dismissed. The Court will address each of these arguments in turn.

A. Shotgun Pleading

Defendants argue that the Complaint is "an indecipherable pleading" and that the allegations are a "pervasive mix-and-match approach" that does not give adequate notice of the claims against them. (Doc. #11, pp. 1, 5-6.) Defendants argue that "there is simply no plausible claim" once the "legal conclusions, conclusory allegations, and contradictory allegations have been omitted." (Id., p. 7.)

The Complaint identifies the defendants collectively as the "Inn of Naples Defendants". (Doc. #1, p. 1, introductory paragraph.) One way in which a complaint may constitute an impermissible shotgun pleading is if it "assert[s] multiple claims against multiple defendants without specifying which of the defendants are responsible for which acts or omissions, or which of the defendants the claim is brought against." Weiland v. Palm Beach Cty. Sheriff's Office, 792 F.3d 1313, 1323 (11th Cir. 2015); see also Barmapov v. Amuial, 986 F.3d 1321, 1324-25 (11th Cir. 2021). Such a pleading fails "to give the defendants adequate notice of the claims against them and the grounds upon which each claim rests," Weiland, 792 F.3d at 1323, and violates therequirement that a plaintiff provide "a short and plain statement of the claim," Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2).

The Complaint does indeed repeatedly refer to the defendants collectively as the "Inn of Naples Defendant". The failure to specify a particular defendant is not fatal, however, when "[t]he complaint can be fairly read to aver that all defendants are responsible for the alleged conduct." Kyle K. v. Chapman, 208 F.3d 940, 944 (11th Cir. 2000). The Complaint typically (but not always) alleges that "each and every" such defendant was involved in the activity described in the particular paragraph of the Complaint. A fair reading of the Complaint is that each of these defendants was involved in the identified conduct attributed to the "Inn of Naples Defendant." See, e.g., "At all times material to this complaint, Defendant Inn of Naples Hotel, LLC (fee simple owner per the deed) and Inn of Naples, LLC were doing business as the Inn of Naples in Naples, Florida and, upon information and belief were authorized to do, licensed to do, and doing business in the State of Florida offering the Inn of Naples as a place of public lodging." (Doc. #1, ¶ 26.) While the defendants may disagree that such allegations are accurate, that dispute is for another day. The group allegations do not fail to state a claim, Auto. Alignment & Body Serv., Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 953 F.3d 707, 732-33 (11th Cir. 2020), and the Complaint does not constitute a shotgun pleading.

B. Failure to State a Claim

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) requires that a complaint contain a "short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). This obligation "requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (citation omitted). To survive dismissal, the factual allegations must be "plausible" and "must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level." Id. at 555; see also Edwards v. Prime Inc., 602 F.3d 1276, 1291 (11th Cir. 2010). This requires "more than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (citations omitted).

In deciding a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, the Court must accept all factual allegations in a complaint as true and take them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007), but "[l]egal conclusions without adequate factual support are entitled to no assumption of truth," Mamani v. Berzain, 654 F.3d 1148, 1153 (11th Cir. 2011) (citations omitted). "Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice." Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. Factual allegations that are merely consistent with a defendant's liability fall short of beingfacially plausible. Chaparro v. Carnival Corp., 693 F.3d 1333, 1337 (11th Cir. 2012) (citations omitted). Thus, the Court engages in a two-step approach: "When there are well-pleaded factual allegations, a court should assume their veracity and then determine whether they plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief." Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679.

(1) Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act

Defendants challenge the one federal claim alleging a violation of the TVPRA set forth in Count One. The TVPRA provides a civil remedy to victims of certain types of human trafficking. The civil remedy portion of the Act provides:

(a) An individual who is a victim of a violation of this chapter may bring a civil action against the perpetrator (or whoever knowingly benefits, 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 phrase "a violation of this chapter" refers to Chapter 77 of Title 18 of the United States Code. The only violation of Chapter 77 relevant to this case is contained in 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a), which provides in relevant part:

(a) Whoever knowingly -
(1) in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce . . . recruits, entices, harbors, transports, provides, obtains, advertises, maintains, patronizes, or solicits by any means a person; or(2) benefits, financially or by receiving anything of value, from participation in a venture which has engaged in an act described in violation of paragraph (1),
knowing, or except where the act constituting the violation of paragraph (1) is advertising, in reckless disregard of the fact, that means of force, threats of force, fraud, coercion described in subsection (e)(2), or any combination of such means will be used to cause the person to engage in a commercial sex act, or that the person has not attained the age of 18 years and will be caused to engage in a commercial sex act, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b).

18 U.S.C. § 1591(a). To state a section 1595(a) claim in this case, plaintiff must plausibly allege that she was a victim of a criminal offense under section 1591(a), and then must plausibly allege that defendant (1)"knowingly benefit[ted] financially or by receiving anything of value," (2) from participation in a venture, (3) which defendant "knew or should have known has engaged in" sex trafficking under section 1591(a). S.Y., 476 F. Supp. 3d at 1255-56 (citing A.B. v. Marriott Int'l, Inc., 455 F. Supp. 3d 171, 181 (E.D. Pa. 2020)).

(a) Plausible Allegations Re: § 1591 Violation

Defendants argue that plaintiff fails to allege an underlying § 1591 violation by alleging a criminal conviction or investigation, or indictment, or prosecution as to the alleged traffickers as in other cases. (Doc. #11, pp. 8-10.) Plaintiff alleges:

68. From approximately 2013 through February 2016, Plaintiff C.S. was recruited to, enticedto, solicited to, held at, harbored as captive at and/or transported to various hotels in Naples, Florida by her sex traffickers to engage in commercial sex acts at these hotels on a regular, consistent and/or repeated basis, and from approximately 2015 to 2016, Plaintiff C.S. was trafficked by
...

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