SPOKANE, WA – A Spokane jury has ordered Washington state to pay $42 million to a woman the state failed to protect from years of childhood sexual abuse.
The striking payout in Jessica Hilton’s case adds to the state’s skyrocketing financial liability for a range of misconduct, from wrongful terminations to deaths in prison and mishandled child welfare cases.
Washington’s payouts jumped from $72 million in fiscal year 2018 to about $500 million in the most recent fiscal year that ended June 30, according to state data. Since the beginning of July, the state has already paid out nearly $89 million, not including the $42 million verdict.
A series of court rulings over the past few years opened up the state to further liability. Unlike many other states, Washington has no cap on the damages that can be paid out.
The state’s legal defense costs have similarly risen, to tens of millions of dollars per year.
The alleged misconduct the state is paying for often goes back decades and child welfare cases have driven much of the recent rise in claims.
Hilton’s lawsuit deals with negligence primarily in the 1990s.
Despite the 1990 conviction of Hilton’s stepfather for raping her sister, the state’s Department of Corrections and Child Protective Services allowed him back into Hilton’s life, according to court filings.
Both agencies declined to comment, other than to say they were “reviewing the jury’s decision and evaluating our legal options.” The state can appeal the lower court verdict.
Hilton’s lawyers said she was prepared to accept a settlement before trial of less than 10% of the eventual verdict, but the state only offered less than $1.5 million.
“Who is doing the risk adjustment for the state of Washington?” asked one of her attorneys, Talis Abolins, who previously worked for the state attorney general’s office for 14 years.
Abolins expects the state to appeal.
The case
The stepfather, Raymond Mashtare, was ordered to serve more than four years in prison, but allowed to remain out of custody on a suspended sentence with a number of conditions, including state supervision, sex offender treatment and staying away from children “without a responsible adult present,” according to court documents.
Hilton’s mother, who suffered from severe alcohol use disorder, was assigned as Mashtare’s chaperone. She would sometimes be so hungover, she’d have Mashtare watch her daughters, according to Hilton. Child Protective Services, now known as the Department of Children, Youth and Families, was reportedly aware he could be living with the victim of his crime.
Despite Mashtare’s history of sexual abuse of children, the Department of Corrections allowed him to continue spending time with his stepdaughters. The agency also failed to share information with the courts that would have forced him into prison, according to Hilton’s lawyers. The state countered that Mashtare didn’t violate the conditions of his supervision, and so there was “no basis to have Mashtare go before the court.”
Over the next decade, the state repeatedly failed to step in to protect Hilton from the sexual abuse of Mashtare and others, Hilton alleged.
“If it were not for the fact that the following events are plainly seen from available government records, it would be difficult to believe the level of recklessness by these defendants,” one expert contracted by the plaintiff wrote in court papers.
In 1998, for example, Hilton’s mother told Child Protective Services that she’d seen Mashtare molesting Hilton. And Hilton disclosed abuse from two years earlier that she hadn’t shared out of fear of her mother blaming her. Still, CPS left Hilton in her mother’s home with a finding she faced “little or no risk” of abuse, documents state.
In court filings, the state argued officials did their due diligence investigating each referral related to Hilton. The state’s attorneys wrote that CPS investigations “were so extensive that they actually exceeded” the standard required by law.
In the 1998 example, state investigators reportedly learned Mashtare was no longer living in the mother’s home with Hilton. Prosecutors never charged Mashtare for the alleged abuse of Hilton.
The verdict
After a nearly monthlong trial in Spokane County Superior Court, a jury at the end of August awarded the $42 million verdict, with 70% of the negligence attributed to Child Protective Services (now the Department of Children, Youth and Families) and 30% to the Department of Corrections. A judge made the verdict official on Friday. Attorney fees will be decided separately.
Hilton was represented by Abolins, of mctlaw, and Eric Fong, of Fong Law.
Fong wasn’t surprised by the magnitude of the verdict, saying this is what happens “when people hear the facts and understand the profound suffering that our community and humans go through because of governmental ineptitude.”
“When you have a system that’s destroying lives, there needs to be accountability,” Fong said.
In a statement, Hilton spoke to her fellow victims of childhood abuse.
“We must never give up fighting for our rights and freedoms, against injustices,” she said. “Not just for ourselves, but for all of us. I am honored to have the opportunity to continue healing, and to give back with the chance to lift up others. This is a future I could only dream of.”
This story first appeared on Washington State Standard.