Butte jury directs DPHHS to pay $5.5M award for negligence in girl's rape

Following two weeks of trial testimony, a jury on Friday found Montana’s child protection agency negligent for allegedly taking months to adequately inform police that a girl had been raped and gave birth at age 12.

The girl is now 23 and the jury directed the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, or DPHHS, to pay her $5.5 million in compensatory damages for past and future emotional distress, mental anguish and pain and suffering.

There are caps in state law for civil damages against the agency but the plaintiffs say the $5.5 million falls within them. The caps have been challenged in another case and the issue is currently before the Montana Supreme Court.

It only takes two-thirds of jurors to rule in civil cases, but all 12 agreed to the negligence claim and monetary award.

District Judge Ed McLean oversaw the case. He retired from the bench in Missoula about 10 years ago but has been appointed to various cases since then, including this one.

The girl was 11 when she was raped by her mother’s live-in boyfriend, William Thomas Spencer. They lived in Butte at the time and Spencer was convicted of the rape in 2016 and sentenced to 30 years in state prison. Prosecutors in Butte-Silver Bow tried that criminal case and Spencer is still in prison.

But the victim sued DPHHS and its Child and Family Services Division in late 2022, saying it was told of her pregnancy on Jan. 29, 2014, when she lived in Billings and didn’t report it to police with any names or details until Aug. 2, 2014 — 185 days later.

Nobody under age 16 can consent to sex in Montana and her pregnancy was proof enough a crime had occurred, her attorney, Lawrence Henke, argued during the two-week trial in Butte.

He said the agency was mandated by Montana law and its own policies to immediately report any indications of sex crimes against children to law enforcement.

But the agency didn’t adequately inform police until Aug. 2 when the girl’s maternal grandmother provided DNA evidence showing that Spencer was the father, Henke said.

Once police were informed, they acted immediately, the girl was removed from the home within a few days and a warrant was issued for Spencer's arrest, Henke said. He was apprehended three months later.

But because the state agency failed to act sooner, the girl remained in the home, was raped several more times, and the trauma caused PTSD and other mental anguish that is still with her, Henke said.

Henke didn’t ask for a specific amount in damages, saying jurors could decide that, but he said the agency must be held accountable for failing to act sooner.

“If mandatory duties can be ignored and it causes a child to be raped repeatedly without consequence, then the law means nothing and we’ve all lost a piece of our soul,” he told jurors during closing arguments.

Susan Milko and other lawyers representing the state say DPHHS properly investigated the girl’s pregnancy and did contact police, including faxing a detailed report in March 2014. A caseworker also testified that she had informal conversations about the situation with a Billings detective.

The agency also “wrapped” the girl in services during and after the pregnancy that cost tens of thousands of dollars, they said, but social workers do not have authority to investigate crimes.

They said Spencer was responsible for harms the girl endured because of the sexual assault and he, the girl and the girl’s mother were “hiding evidence” necessary to act earlier.

“The villains in this story are not the hardworking Child and Family Services workers,” Milko told jurors during closing arguments Friday. “The person who caused these injuries is in prison.”

Billings police say they never got a faxed report in March 2014 and Henke said the state had no documents or evidence a caseworker had conversations with detectives.

Throughout the trial, Henke cast the agency as so buried in its own bureaucracy, it failed for months to do one thing — call the cops.

Note: The Montana Standard plans a more detailed story on the trial and potential aftermaths this coming week.