Just a warning to the reading masses: This isn't a happy story.

Any parent's worst fear is having something devastating happen to their child. This fear does not magically dissipate when a Mother places her child. The fear still exists that something will happen to her child, only in the case of adoption, it is totally and completely out of her hands.

Meet Michele Launders. 25 years ago she placed her daughter for adoption through a lawyer that she paid $500.00 to arrange. Instead, the lawyer, Michael Steinberg, took the child home to his live-in girlfriend, Hedda Nussbaum, thus making it an illegal adoption. Six years later, the girl, Lisa, was dead by the hand of her adoptive father.

The kicker in this case resides in the fact that due to the illegal nature of the adoption, the courts ruled that the birth mother was entitled to money in various civil trials. Launders filed suit against Hedda Nussbaum, the city of New York and Steinberg. Nussbaum settled. The city of New York gave $985,000 while admitting no wrong doing. And the ruling against Steinberg just came down.

$15,000,000.00. (I didn't even add enough zeroes the first time!)

York awarded Launders $5 million for Lisa's pain and suffering just before her death, $5 million for pain and suffering "as a battered child" and $5 million in punitive damages.

Of course, the monster, as he is referred to in the linked article, said that the amount should be lessened because the girl died rlatively quickly. Of course, by relatively quickly he meant that she was only in pain for about eight hours. Sick.

Thankfully, the judge was rendered almost speechless and gave this beautiful gem of a statement:

The appeals judges, in affirming York's award, wrote: "We disagree, and in simply so stating acknowledge that sometimes words fail even those who use the language to render judgments on a daily basis."

While Launders lawyer does not believe that Steinberg has any significant assets to pay the fifteen million (you know, since he's been disbarred as a lawyer and all) the ruling comes as a welcome one in the world of adoption. Why?

Perhaps, just perhaps, this will force some attorneys, agencies and facilitators to cross their t's and dot their i's. If this case would not have been based on an illegally procured adoption, I don't know if the birth mother would have had a leg to stand on regarding civil suit. However, with something like this as a precedent, anyone hoping to skirt the law had better realize that if something absolutely awful happens, such as in this case, the gavel is coming down on your head.

My prayers for some final healing, now that the trials are all over, for Michele Launders are raised this morning. It must be a releif to know that people side with you. But it doesn't bring a daughter back. It just doesn't.

A sad case for all involved.