A Texas appeals court has rejected Facebook’s efforts to halt multiple lawsuits accusing the social media juggernaut of knowingly permitting sex traffickers to recruit through its various platforms.

The lawsuits were brought by three Houston women recruited as 13-,14- and 16-year-olds through Facebook apps. The social media company appealed the rulings to the 14th Court of Appeal. The appeals court issued three parallel rulings all reflecting a 3-2 majority. In each case there was a dissenting ruling from Justice Tracy Christopher, who found Facebook should be cloaked in federal statutory immunity.

FACEBOOK TRAFFICKING: Facebook, Instragram fighting Houston sex trafficking lawsuit

Annie McAdams, the lawyer who sued on the young women’s behalf, said she expects Facebook will seek to halt the cases by appealing the lower courts’ finding to the state supreme court.

A Facebook spokesperson declined to comment on the rulings. The company previously told the Houston Chronicle that human trafficking is not permitted on the site and staffers must report all instances of trafficking they’re aware of to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The trio of Houston lawsuits make the case that Facebook and its various apps and commodities should not be protected by blanket legal immunity and that Houston is the right place to proceed, even if Facebook is based in Silicon Valley.

“Houston is the backyard of where these children were harmed,” McAdams said. “Houston has long been recognized as a hub of human trafficking so it is a perfect the city to address the harms that have been created by online sex trafficking.”

The ruling came from civil judges in October. The appeals court agreed with plaintiffs in separate rulings that Facebook was not immune.

Facebook argued that it was protected from answering lawsuits because the tech company had immunity under the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law written to address defamation cases against technology cases during the dial-up era.

Lawyers argued on behalf of the young girls trafficked through the site that the Communications Decency Act was never meant to protect tech companies from any and all claims. The act did not grant immunity across the board to tech companies, they said.

The case broke new ground arguing that the federal Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act and the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, known as FOSTA-SESTA, makes it illegal to knowingly assist, facilitate, or support sex trafficking. It amended portions of the Communications Decency Act that said online companies were immune from civil liability if their users violated sex trafficking laws.

Following the trial court proceeding, attorney McAdams explained,“The CDA was never designed to protect entities that protect the rape of children.”

McAdams and her co-counsel argued that Facebook was knowingly benefiting from facilitating sex trafficking, even if it didn’t endorse it.

One of the cases, involving a 14-year-old from Spring, recounts how the girl was recruited, groomed and sold in 2018 by a man she met on Instagram. The trafficker beat her and sold her for commercial sex for three weeks. McAdams said the child has undergone intensive therapy in the years since.

gabrielle.banks@chron.com