A Portland Oregon jury has awarded two girls $4.1 million in a civil jury trial. The girls alleged that Oregon Human Services failed to protect them from their foster mother who sexually abused them. The foster mother had been reported to a child abuse hotline seven times before the Department of Human Services intervened. By that time, it was too late.
Kimberly Janelle Vollmer, the foster mother accused of molestation, was approved as a foster mother in January 2011 in spite of a history of mental health issues and suspect work performance as an adult care giver. Vollmer had been hospitalized in 2005 on a psychiatric hold for five days because she’d purposely cut her arms and her face and had been fired from a job as an adult caregiver because of repeated medical negligence prior to her approval as a foster mother.
In addition to her checkered history, Vollmer was in charge of eight foster children even though she was only supposed to take care of three children at a time.
The jury award, the largest verdict ever recorded against the Oregon Department of Human Services, will provide the young girls with counseling as well as $2 million for each girl for their pain and suffering. At the time of the abuse the girls were 2 and 4 years old respectively.