Florida Court Rules Rights of Children Under Adoption and Safe Families Act Can be Enforced in Feder

PRESS RELEASE

Unsettled national law affecting foster children gains another federal judge's support; Magistrate Judge Dubé in Florida joins Judge Campbell in Tennessee affirming rights of foster children

Magistrate Judge Robert L. Dubé of the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida, issued a ruling on April 20 in Bonnie L. v. Jeb Bush recommending that the state of Florida's motion to dismiss claims against them be denied and that the case go forward into fact gathering that will lead to a trial. In doing so, Magistrate Judge Dubé joined U.S. District Court Judge Todd J. Campbell in Tennessee in upholding the federal statute, the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), by ruling that the rights of children are enforceable in a federal court of law. This most recent ruling runs counter to a decision by Judge Garrett Brown in New Jersey that ASFA does not create enforceable legal rights for children who are in state-, city-, or county-run child welfare systems.

Under federal court rules, a recommendation by a magistrate can be challenged before the District Court judge and the losing party has ten days to file such objections. If upheld by Judge Federico Moreno, Magistrate Judge Dubé's ruling gives children in Florida the right to sue the state when it violates the rights accorded children under ASFA.

There are currently over 15,000 children in Department of Children and Families (DCF), Florida's child welfare system who would directly benefit from Magistrate Judge Dubé's ruling. The federal class action lawsuit, Bonnie L. v. Jeb Bush, was filed in August 2000 to stop ongoing violations of children's rights and to ensure that DCF adequately care for and protect foster children in the state's custody. Children in Florida are often placed in overcrowded temporary holding facilities without services or treatment. Monitoring and supervision of children in DCF custody is frequently inadequate so that children face further abuse and neglect while in foster care.

"Magistrate Judge Dubé's decision strengthens the rights of foster children not only in Florida but throughout America," stated Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director of Children's Rights, a national, non-profit advocacy organization for children. "By providing greater clarity to unsettled federal law, the magistrate judge's ruling, if adopted by the federal district judge, creates a much stronger legal basis for enforcing children's rights in other failing child welfare systems." Children's Rights is co-counsel for the Florida children, along with a group of local advocates, headed by Karen Gievers of Tallahassee and Theodore Babbitt of West Palm Beach.

All of the plaintiffs' other legal claims under the federal constitution and under two other federal statutes were upheld in the Magistrate's recommendation. Magistrate Judge Dubé recommended that the motion by Governor Jeb Bush to be dismissed from the lawsuit also be denied. If Judge Moreno upholds all of these recommendations, the Bonnie L. lawsuit can move forward on a speedier track to a trial. As there are no settlement negotiations underway at this time between the plaintiff children and defendants in Florida, the children's attorneys will intensify their efforts in the fact-gathering to support their claims that Florida's child welfare system is failing to protect and care for children in its custody.

Children's Rights works throughout the United States in partnership with national and local experts, advocates and government officials to document the needs of children in the care of child welfare systems. Children's Rights helps develop realistic solutions and, where necessary, uses the power of litigation to ensure that reform takes place.