Doe v. Choice Hotel Int’l, Inc., No. 24-1598-TDC, 2025 WL 2108792 (D. Md. July 28, 2025)

Factual Background

In Doe v. Choice Hotel Int’l, Inc., plaintiff Jane Doe (“Plaintiff”) brought claims under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (“TVPRA”), 18 U.S.C. §§ 1581–1597, against franchisor Choice Hotels International, Inc. (“Choice”) and its franchisee GP4 Property Owner, LLC (“GP4”).

Plaintiff alleged that between June 2014 and October 2014, she was trafficked repeatedly in rooms at the Suburban Extended Stay Hotel Bay Meadows located in Jacksonville, Florida (“Suburban Bay Meadows”). At that time, the hotel was owned and operated by GP4, a limited liability company based in Raleigh, North Carolina, as a Choice franchise under the Suburban Extended Stay brand. Choice is a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Maryland.

In the complaint, Plaintiff alleged that GP4 participated in a venture with the traffickers who exploited her for commercial sex acts by failing to train hotel staff to recognize indicators of trafficking, failing to report criminal activity, and fostering an environment that allowed traffickers to operate with impunity. She further asserted that Choice, as franchisor, participated in the venture by retaining control over key aspects of the hotel’s operations, including policies related to the prevention and response to sex trafficking. Plaintiff claimed that both Defendants knew or should have known of the ongoing trafficking activity, citing publicly available Yelp reviews that described criminal conduct occurring at the property.

Procedural History

On June 3, 2024, Plaintiff filed the operative complaint in the United States District Court, District of Maryland. She asserted perpetrator liability under the TVPRA against GP4 and beneficiary liability against both Defendants. Plaintiff alleged that each Defendant knowingly benefited financially from its participation in ventures connected to the trafficking activities through the payments for the room rental and the revenue-sharing provisions of their franchise agreement despite knowing, or recklessly disregarding, that such ventures violated the TVPRA.

In response, GP4 moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, improper venue, and failure to state a claim. Choice separately moved to dismiss for improper venue or, in the alternative, sought transfer to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, and likewise moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim.

Court’s Analysis

Personal Jurisdiction

To establish personal jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant such as GP4, the plaintiff must demonstrate that (1) the defendant purposefully availed itself of the privilege of conducting activities within the forum state; (2) the plaintiff’s claims arise out of or relate to those forum-directed activities; and (3) the exercise of jurisdiction would be constitutional reasonable.   

GP4 did not dispute that it purposefully availed itself of the privilege of conducting activities in Maryland by entering into a franchise agreement with Choice, a Maryland-based corporation. Accordingly, the majority of the Court’s analysis is focused on the second prong—whether Plaintiff’s claims “arise out of or relate to” GP4’s contacts with Maryland.

To satisfy the related requirement, Plaintiff relied exclusively on GP4’s franchise agreement with Choice as the key jurisdictional contact, arguing that her TVPRA claims were related to that relationship. Specifically, she contended that GP4’s rental of rooms to traffickers and its alleged facilitation of trafficking were part of a “venture” among GP4, Choice, and the traffickers. She also claimed that Choice’s conduct in setting a national policy for hotel operation and setting the franchise fee conferred personal jurisdiction over GP4. Finally, she asserted that GP4’s use of Choice’s Maryland-based reservation and payment systems, and Choice’s processing of room payments from Maryland, connected her claims to the forum.

The Court rejected these arguments. To the extent that Plaintiff relied on Choice’s actions, such as its corporate policies, those contacts could not establish jurisdiction over GP4 because personal jurisdiction must be based on the defendant’s own conduct. Moreover, GP4’s alleged acts—renting rooms to traffickers, operating the hotel, and failing to prevent trafficking—all occurred in Florida, not Maryland, and therefore could not constitute forum-related contacts.

The only remaining Maryland contacts were GP4’s routine franchise payments and use of Choice’s reservation system. The Court found that these activities reflected ordinary franchisor–franchisee interactions, especially since the franchise agreement did not require the remittance of revenues from specific transactions to Maryland.

The Court concluded that such routine business dealings are insufficient to establish personal jurisdiction over a franchisee for TVPRA claims. Absent provisions in the franchise agreement that directly or indirectly reference a trafficking-related venture, or allegations of trafficking-specific communications between the franchisor and franchisee, the necessary nexus for jurisdiction is lacking.

In reaching its conclusion, the Court examined analogous cases addressing the jurisdictional reach over out-of-state franchisees. It relied heavily on the California Supreme Court’s decision in Vons Companies, Inc. v. Seabest Foods, Inc., where the plaintiff, a meat supplier, brought claims in California against a California franchisor and four of its Washington franchisees arising from incidents of bacterially contaminated meat. The court in Vons upheld personal jurisdiction because the franchise agreement contained specific provisions requiring the use of approved meat suppliers and establishing uniform standards for preparing and handling meat—provisions that were directly connected to the alleged injury. By contrast, the Choice–GP4 franchise agreement contained no provisions related to trafficking, and therefore the claims were not sufficiently related to Maryland contacts to support jurisdiction.

The Court also found Plaintiff’s reliance on Doe v. G5 Hospitality, LLC, a Texas district court case, to be misplaced. In G5 Hospitality, jurisdiction was found proper over an out-of-state hotel franchisee for TVPRA claims on the basis that the alleged trafficking “venture” conflicted directly with explicit franchisor policies on criminal activity and human trafficking—policies absent from the Choice–GP4 franchise agreement.

Finally, the Court examined and rejected any analogy to Tire Engineering & Distribution, LLC v. Shandong Linlong Rubber Co., where the Fourth Circuit upheld jurisdiction based on extensive communication and collaboration between the out-of-state and forum-state defendants. There was no evidence of comparable correspondence or trafficking-related coordination between GP4 and Choice.

Accordingly, the Court held that Plaintiff failed to establish a sufficient nexus between GP4’s Maryland contacts and the alleged trafficking, and thus personal jurisdiction over GP4 was lacking.

Transfer of Venue

Having determined that it lacked personal jurisdiction over GP4, the Court held that venue in the District of Maryland was no longer proper. The Court therefore granted Choice’s motion to transfer the case to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, where a substantial portion of the alleged conduct occurred.

The Court reasoned that Florida is the more appropriate forum as the alleged trafficking occurred entirely in Florida, the majority of witnesses are located there, and the interests of justice favored transfer to a forum that could exercise jurisdiction over all defendants. Furthermore, Plaintiff’s choice of forum in Maryland is given limited deference because Plaintiff is not a resident of Maryland.

The Court declined to rule on the motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, deferring that determination to the authority of the transferee court.

Key Takeaway

The central factor in the Court’s conclusion that personal jurisdiction did not exist over GP4 for Plaintiff’s TVPRA claims was the absence of any specific provision or policy on sex trafficking in the GP4–Choice franchise agreement. However, the takeaway this reasoning seems to invite is somewhat perverse: that the less a franchisor does to combat trafficking, the more insulated its franchisees may be from being haled into distant courts.

Perhaps, the better takeaway for practitioners is not to avoid addressing social harms, but to draft franchise agreements with care, being mindful that well-intentioned provisions could later serve as a jurisdictional hook for third parties asserting statutory or tort claims unrelated to the core franchise relationship. Ultimately, we want to do good—but this case signals that a legislative review may be necessary to ensure a better balance between corporate responsibility and the constitutional limits of personal jurisdiction.  

This Case Report was prepared by Shan Wen, an associate in the Franchise and Distribution Practice Group of Mortenson Taggart Adams LLP. Shan can be reached at swen@mortensontaggart.com.