Judge slashes nearly $100M jury verdict awarded to Susan Cox Powell’s parents
Sept 15, 2020
TACOMA, Wash. — A judge here on Tuesday slashed by two thirds a nearly $100 million jury verdict handed down to the parents of missing Utah woman Susan Cox Powell at the end of July over the 2012 deaths of Powell’s two children at the hands of their father.
“My conscience is still shocked by the verdict size today, as it was on the day the verdict was delivered,” Pierce County Superior Court Judge Stanley Rumbaugh said.
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The jury ruled unanimously at the conclusion of the trial that the state agency had acted negligently. Their verdict levied a $98.5 million penalty against the state. Weeks later, attorneys for the state filed a motion requesting a new trial or a reduction in the damages.
In a hearing on that request, Rumbaugh said it was clear to him that the graphic nature of the killings had played into the jury’s decision.
“These were extreme and inflammatory facts that related to the killings of these boys,” Rumbaugh said. “They’re bound to bestir passion in the hearts and minds of any rational person.”
Rumbaugh stressed the jurors were likely not even consciously aware of their own “passion” in setting such a high dollar figure for damages.
“It’s not the size of the verdict alone, most certainly, that is an indicator,” Rumbaugh said. “It’s whether the size of the verdict in light of the evidence produced shocks the conscience of the court. And in this case, it does.”
As a result, Rumbaugh cut the jury’s award to $32.8 million. Or, he said, the parties could retry the case.
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The reduction comes as a blow to the Coxes, who have said the high dollar damages awarded by the jury would serve as important motivation for the state of Washington to reform its child welfare practices. During the trial, witnesses for the Coxes accused the Department of Social and Health Services and its social workers of showing “reunification bias” by attempting to place Charlie and Braden Powell back with their father, in spite of Josh Powell’s status as the sole suspect in the suspected killing of his wife.
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That effort culminated in a Feb. 1, 2012, court hearing where a judge ordered supervised visitation to continue, while not objecting to a state plan to continue holding those visits at Powell’s rented home. However, the judge also ordered Powell to undergo a psychosexual evaluation and polygraph before she would consider allowing him full custody. Powell killed himself and the children days later, during one of those visits.
[URL='https://twitter.com/ashergrey']Dave Cawley [URL='https://twitter.com/ashergrey']@ashergrey
