$300 Million Judgment for a Child Abused in Caretakers' Custody, the Largest Entered in Missouri in 2024

Between the ages of three and five, a child identified in court records only as G.T. spent stretches of time in the custody and care of Susan and James McLaurie. During those years the child suffered physical and sexual abuse at their hands. James McLaurie was criminally prosecuted and convicted for sexually abusing the child. The civil courts took up the question of what that harm was worth.

By the time the lawsuit was ready, Susan McLaurie had died. Missouri law allows a claim to proceed against a deceased defendant through a court-appointed stand-in, so a defendant ad litem, Blake Markus of Carson and Coil in Jefferson City, was appointed to represent her interests. Grant Boyd of the O'Brien Law Firm in St. Louis filed the case in St. Charles County Circuit Court, case number 2311-CC00467, on negligence theories that included the failure to supervise and protect a young child entrusted to the defendants' care.

There was no jury. The case was tried to the bench before Judge W. Christopher McDonough, and on October 30, 2024, the court entered judgment for the plaintiff: $300 million in total, assessed as $150 million against each defendant, with fault placed entirely on the McLauries.

The size of that number calls for a plain caveat. The only insurance identified in the case was a Liberty Mutual policy with a limit of $303,000, and settlement discussions before trial never moved past that figure. The judgment is roughly a thousand times the known coverage. One defendant was already deceased when the suit began, and nothing in the public record suggests either had personal assets anywhere near the award. Markus said he would pursue insurance coverage on behalf of the deceased defendant, which is where any actual recovery is likely to come from. Whatever G.T. ultimately collects will be a small fraction of what the court found the abuse to be worth.

That gap does not make the judgment an empty gesture. A bench trial still required proof. Boyd put on evidence of what abuse at that age does to a child, in the moment and over a lifetime, and a circuit judge weighed it and fixed the damages at $150 million per defendant. Boyd told Missouri Lawyers Media he was encouraged that courts in the state are better understanding and recognizing the damage childhood abuse causes, both immediately and across a victim's life. For a plaintiff who was a toddler when the abuse began, the judgment is a permanent judicial finding of who was responsible and how completely.

Missouri Lawyers Media reported the result in December 2024 and later ranked it first on its list of the largest judgments entered in Missouri that year.