The CSE Institute wishes to congratulate Board of Advisor member Ashley Lynam on her recent article in the Legal Intelligencer. The article, “Act 105: The Most Robust Civil Remedy Against Sex Traffickers” outlines potential civil cause of action against advertisers like Backpage.com.
The article focuses on Section 3051, the civil cause of action in Act 105, Pennsylvania’s one-year-old anti-trafficking law. In the article, Ashley Lynam, a former Assistant District Attorney in Philadelphia who is now in private practice, explains how civil attorneys in Pennsylvania can help join the fight against trafficking and obtain justice for victims outside the criminal justice system. Recent legal developments have opened the door to lawsuits against websites like Backpage.com.
Ms. Lynam emphasizes that Section 3051 permits a victim to bring suit against anyone who “knowingly advertises or publishes advertisements for purposes of recruitment into sex trade activity.” This enables potential litigation against “big pocket” websites such as Backpage.com, which has profited greatly from hosting online classified ads for “adult entertainment.” Unfortunately, an immunity provision in the Communications Decency Act (CDA), a federal statute that prevents websites that merely host content from being treated as if they themselves created and published that content, has shielded Backpage from liability. But recently, the Washington state Supreme Court held that CDA immunity could not apply to Backpage and allowed a lawsuit brought by teenagers sold for sex on Backpage to continue. According to the Washington Supreme Court, because the plaintiffs alleged that Backpage actually induced sex trafficking with its posting rules, the website could not claim CDA immunity.
Armed with this groundbreaking new law and Section 3051’s advertisers provision, Ms. Lynam encourages Pennsylvania attorneys to take on trafficking survivors as clients. When they do, she also warns them to proceed with care, taking into account the invasiveness of civil discovery and the danger that survivors could be re-traumatized during the process.
The CSE Institute is able to provide technical assistance to attorneys who have taken on the representation of survivors of trafficking to help them obtain civil justice and stresses that they also heed Ms. Lynam’s cautions. For more information about pursuing a civil cause of action under Section 3051, please contact CSE Institute Director Shea Rhodes at shea.rhodes@law.villanova.edu or (610) 519-7183.