Judge Awards Class Action Status to Lawsuit Seeking Reform of New Jersey's Child Welfare System

PRESS RELEASE

Thousands children in DYFS custody, including African-American and Hispanic children at risk of delayed adoptions because of their race, are now plaintiffs in theCharlie and Nadine H.v. McGreevey federal lawsuit; state attempt to dismiss case denied.

Judge Garrett E. Brown of the U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey, ruled March 8th to grant class certification in the lawsuitCharlie and Nadine H.v. McGreevey that seeks to reform New Jersey's child welfare system. This ruling allows the federal civil rights lawsuit to move forward and calls for a new phase of fact-finding about the failings of New Jersey's Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS). The lawsuit was filed in August 1999 by Children's Rights, a national children's advocacy group, and Lowenstein Sandler, a New Jersey law firm. The New York law firm of White & Case has recently joined the case. Judge Brown certified the lawsuit as a class action on behalf of the thousands of New Jersey children who are or will be in involuntary custody of DYFS and all African-American and Hispanic children who are or will be in DYFS custody and who are at risk of being denied or delayed placements or adoption because of their race.

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Judge Brown's ruling affirms the lawsuit's contention that these children have a legal right to turn to the courts for protection and to pursue their claims that DYFS is violating their constitutional rights and putting their lives and well-being in danger.

"These silent victims will now have a voice," stated Eric Thompson, lead attorney in the lawsuit for Children's Rights. "We can now move forward in gathering facts about the failings of the system in order to seek concrete reforms that will ensure these children are protected, cared for, and can find permanent, loving homes as quickly as possible."

The amended complaint in Charlie and Nadine H. alleges that DYFS engages in practices that are harming children in foster care in New Jersey. The complaint also alleges that DYFS is engaging in discriminatory placement that results in the delay or denial of adoptions and foster care placements for an estimated 6,500 African-American and Hispanic children in DYFS custody.

Judge Brown has called for a scheduling conference with attorneys for plaintiffs and defendants on March 28, 2002 at the U.S Courthouse in Trenton to review a plan for the next steps in the fact-finding process in Charlie and Nadine H.

Background on the lawsuit

August 1999:Charlie and Nadine H.was filed on behalf of 20 named plaintiff children living in eight different New Jersey counties. These children all experienced serious physical and psychological harm while in the care of DYFS or while known to DYFS because of allegations of abuse and neglect. Defendants in the original suit were Governor Christine Todd Whitman, Michele K. Guhl, Commissioner of the Department of Human Services, and Charles Venti, Director of the Division of Youth and Family Services of the State of New Jersey.

Children's Rights had responded to requests from local advocates to investigate New Jersey's child welfare system over three years before the lawsuit was filed. When Governor Whitman appointed a Blue Ribbon Panel of child welfare professionals to examine DYFS, CRI suspended its review, awaiting the panel's findings and action by the state. The Panel's Final Report, issued in February 1998, concluded that DYFS had been damaged by years of funding cut-backs and neglect; identified problems at every point in the child welfare process; and, stated that the capacity of DYFS has been reduced to a "crisis mode of intervention." The Governor's strategic plan failed to address what the panel identified as the most fundamental and urgent problems facing a DYFS in "chaos."

With renewed calls from advocates, foster parents and caseworkers, Children's Rights met with more than 400 people involved in the day-to-day operations of the child welfare system, including state judges, state and private agency caseworkers, educators, foster parents, adoptive parents and children living in foster care. Many described specific examples of DYFS's systemic failures that pointed to the need for a lawsuit to force reform of DYFS practices. Those deficiencies, detailed in the lawsuit's complaint, include:

*leaving children in homes where they are abused and neglected, and even killed;
*removing children from homes where they could be safely maintained with proper services;
*keeping children in foster care unnecessarily with little attempt to reunite them with families;
*moving children from foster home to foster home without adequate services or support;
*allowing children to languish for years in custody with little hope of an adoptive home.

January 2000: Judge Brown ruled that the lawsuit should move forward. Judge Brown rejected arguments by the New Jersey Attorney General and DYFS to have the lawsuit dismissed in its entirety. While rejecting peripheral legal claims, Judge Brown held that as a matter of federal constitutional law, children in DYFS custody involuntarily have a right to be protected from harm and to vindicate that right in federal court.

Lowenstein Sandler consistently ranks at the top among New Jersey's largest law firms in the New Jersey Law Journal's annual pro bono survey. The firm has played a visible role in cases involving educational equity, civil rights, and political asylum, and has a deep commitment to children's issues.

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.