Champaign mental health center still owes $180m after rape liability verdict

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WCIA) — A Champaign mental health center is facing millions in damages after they were found liable for a sexual assault that happened there four years ago. This week, a judge reaffirmed the center’s liability but modified the damages they have to pay.

The Pavilion Behavioral Health System was sued in 2021 by St. Louis-based Simon Law Firm, representing a teenage girl from Clark County and her mother. They accused The Pavilion of negligence, medical malpractice and fraud, among other things, that led to the teenager being raped at the system’s Champaign facility by another teenage patient. The victim was 13 years old at the time.

Earlier this year, a Champaign County jury ruled in favor of the victim and her mother, awarding them $60 million in compensatory damages and $475 million in punitive damages. Following the judgment, the plaintiffs and The Pavilion filed new motions.

The plaintiffs asked for costs and pre- and post-judgment interest while Pavilion filed an appeal of the verdict. They asked that the judge either overrule the jury, grant a new trial or reduce the damages awarded.

Judge Jason Bohm granted the plaintiffs’ motion, allowing them to recover costs of $5,100 and interest of $8.6 million. He also partially granted The Pavilion’s motion, reducing punitive damages to $120 million but rejecting all other parts of their motion.

“The evidence was overwhelmingly against The Pavilion,” Judge Bohm said. “This was not a close case on the issue of liability.”

The evidence and facts of the case were laid out in both the lawsuit filed by Simon Law and by Judge Bohm in his recent ruling. The judge called this case “difficult” and the facts “disturbing.”

The teenage victim, identified in court documents as A.T., was admitted to The Pavilion on Nov. 30, 2020, for mental health services in the youth/adolescent unit. Lawyers representing A.T. and her mother said in the lawsuit their clients were told male and female patients were housed in separate wings of the facility with no access to each other, and that A.T. would get a room in an exclusively female wing of the unit.

That is not what happened.

The Pavilion’s adolescent unit could be separated into male and female wings, but in practice, it was not. Males and females often had no separation and A.T. was assigned to a room that had one or more female roommates but was in a wing that housed mostly male patients.

Four days later, a 16-year-old boy identified as D.C. was assigned to the room next to A.T.’s. Court documents show that D.C. was admitted to The Pavilion after fleeing a group home; the facility he left warned that he “requires close observation as this has been a culmination of a pattern of intensifying dangerous impulsive behavior.” That behavior included sexual violence.

The rape happened the following day. Despite a 9 p.m. curfew, D.C. was able to freely roam the hallway outside his and A.T.’s room, engaging in “erratic and aggressive behavior” often directly in front of facility staff. He and an accomplice smeared toothpaste on the camera lenses to obscure their view and around 11 p.m., D.C. intentionally spilled water in the hallway. When a staff member turned to get a towel, that’s when he lured A.T. into his room without anyone noticing.

A.T.’s lawyers said that as his accomplice stood lookout, D.C. pressured their client into having sex with him. When A.T. refused, the lawyers said D.C. pushed her into the shower, forced her pants off and raped her.

The toothpaste-smeared cameras weren’t discovered and cleaned until the following morning. A day after that, A.T. disclosed the rape to a staff member.

“There are and were systemic shortfalls in staff levels, monitoring and security practices at Defendant Pavilion’s facility which allowed this incident, and prior incidents, to occur,” the lawyers said in the lawsuit.

During the trial, numerous current and former employees of The Pavillon testified on the events of Dec. 5, 2020, on the procedures inside the facility and on what was happening there in the time leading up to A.T. and D.C.’s arrival. The testimony led Judge Bohm to determine that the pediatric unit was “already out of control” when they were admitted.

It was revealed that there was “some sort of incident” almost every day and night and that fights between patients, or instances of a patient attacking a staff member, were a daily occurrence. The pediatric unit was “often” understaffed, and nurses left their stations to do rounds for up to 30 minutes at a time, leaving “mental health techs” to monitor patients and ensure they didn’t hurt themselves or each other. MHTs are not qualified or licensed to provide psychiatric or behavioral therapy to patients and require only a high school education.

As for the security cameras, testimony revealed they do display real-time footage in the nurse’s station, but it had been decided that no one needed to monitor the cameras. The footage that was recorded the night A.T was raped was described by Judge Bohm as “damning,” as it recorded D.C.’s behavior and him smearing the lenses with toothpaste.

The MHT on duty that night testified that she did see the cameras appeared fuzzy, but she didn’t do anything about it because “it wasn’t my job to look at the cameras.” The MHT who was on duty before her, when confronted with the footage, admitted he lost control of the situation.

Even after the attack, nothing at The Pavilion changed. The staff member whom A.T. told of her rape later resigned over the inaction, which was noted by Judge Bohm in his ruling.

“If (A.T. and D.C.) were admitted today, the same horrible outcome seems likely,” he said. “It does not take an expert to recognize that the Pavilion’s choice to house patients in the manner it did was doomed to fail.”

Given the strong evidence against The Pavilion, Judge Bohm reaffirmed the compensatory award that The Pavillon owes A.T. and her mother — 60 million. But Bohm said he was “duty-bound” to reduce the $475 million punitive penalty.

“There is ample evidence of the Pavilion’s wanton disregard but there is no evidence of actual malice or an intent that (the victim) be harmed. Therefore, the punitive damages award must be ‘on the low end of the scale,'” Bohm said. “Given the already significant compensatory award in this case, the Court believes doubling the compensatory award is sufficient to satisfy the punitive goals of retribution and deterrence. This Court recognizes the enormity of reducing a jury award by well over a quarter billion dollars with the stroke of a pen and does not do so lightly.”

Judge Bohm’s ruling on the defendant’s post-trial motions concluded proceedings at the trial court level. The Pavilion now has the opportunity to appeal these rulings to the Fifth District Appellate Court in Illinois.

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