Major Legal Action Seeks to Place Entire New York City Child Welfare System Into Receivership

PRESS RELEASE

Class-Action Lawsuit Charges City and State with Persistent, Ongoing Failure to Protect Children in Custody or in Danger of Abuse and Neglect.

A federal civil rights lawsuit filed today in U.S. District Court charges that the lives of thousands of New York City children are endangered by the child welfare system's persistent failure to care for and protect the children in its custody or those reported to be in danger of abuse and neglect. The lawsuit, Marisol v. Giuliani, filed by Children's Rights, Inc. along with co-counsel, Lawyers for Children, Inc. takes the unprecedented step of asking that the entire Child Welfare Administration (CWA) be removed from the city's control and placed into receivership. It is the first legal action to ever examine every facet of CWA's operations and call for immediate reform.

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Marisol v. Giuliani was filed on behalf of eleven named plaintiffs -- children who have all experienced serious physical and psychological harm while in the care of the city's child welfare system or who have been put in danger because of the city's failure to investigate abuse complaints. The lawsuit, the largest class-action of its kind in the country, is filed on behalf of over 100,000 children: the approximately 43,000 children in the custody of CWA and the tens of thousands of additional children not in custody but who are known to CWA because of reports of abuse or neglect. Defendants in the suit include Mayor Giuliani, Governor Pataki, and those appointed officials responsible for child welfare.

"New York City's child welfare system is one of the largest in the country and one of the most dysfunctional systems I have ever seen," stated Marcia Robinson Lowry, Executive Director of Children's Rights, Inc., a national organization dedicated to improving the lives of children dependent upon foster care, mental health and juvenile justice systems. "The city's system, which spends more money than any other, is also the most wasteful -- in terms of government funds, but especially when it comes to this city's most precious asset -- its children. Children who depend on the city's protection are dying because of the city's neglect. Other children live a childhood of uncertainty, without permanent homes, planning, or adequate health care, all because the city's foster care system fails to follow the most basic legal rules. Dramatic action must be taken as soon as possible." If the district court orders the system into receivership, it would effectively remove child protection and foster care from the control of the City of New York. Only one other child welfare system in the United States, that of Washington, D.C., has ever been placed in full receivership by a court order, as a result of a Children's Rights lawsuit, LaShawn v. Barry.

Children's Rights, Inc. has successfully litigated against failing child welfare systems in ten cities and states. Today's case is the first time that Children's Rights, Inc. has asked for the drastic remedy of receivership in an initial legal action.

"We believe this system is not salvageable and that fundamental changes are necessary," said Lowry. "We base this assessment on CWA's performance for the last ten years and our extensive interviews over the past six months with more than 50 people involved in the day to day operations of the child welfare system -- including Family Court judges as well as city and private agency workers and children living in foster care. No city administration, including the current one, has had the political will to make the changes or take the necessary steps to protect children."

"We are convinced that the remedy of receivership provides the only way to immediately ensure a safe future for the children who must rely on the nightmare of the CWA bureaucracy every day," said Karen J. Freedman and Gayle Lerner, founders and managing directors of Lawyers for Children (LFC) co-counsel in the lawsuit. "For over a decade," they continued, "LFC has been representing children in an effort to mitigate the steady decline in CWA's ability to protect and plan for children in its care." Since 1984, LFC has provided free legal and social work services to over 15,000 New York City children who are before the courts in child welfare proceedings.

Recent media attention has focused on CWA's failure in the death of Elisa Izquierdo. But Lowry said today's lawsuit, which has been in preparation for more than six months, documents many other tragic examples of CWA's ineptitude and neglect. "Marisol, our first named plaintiff, had been locked in a closet and forced to eat her own feces to survive. She is only alive today because of a chance visit by a building inspector. CWA had ignored reports of Marisol's abuse for over 13 months. Shauna, another named plaintiff, is a two year old girl who lives with her drug-addicted mother. She is the subject of an abuse and neglect report the city has not properly investi-gated, even though six other children have been removed from the mother's custody due to abuse and neglect. Marisol, Shauna, and hundreds of girls and boys like them, are each Elisas waiting to happen," Lowry said.

Plaintiffs in today's suit include, among others:

Marisol A., a five-year old girl locked in a filthy closet who was accidentally discovered by a housing inspector. Marisol, who had been in foster care but was returned to her mother by CWA, had a distended stomach from malnutrition, clumps of missing hair, a broken tibia, fractured teeth, and bruises and burns over most of her body. The suit charges that CWA repeatedly failed to investigate complaints of abuse against Marisol's mother and her mother's boyfriend. Even now CWA has not taken steps to free Marisol for adoption and ensure that she grows up in a safe family environment.

Lawrence B., a 17-year-old boy with late stage AIDS, whom, despite his advanced illness, CWA placed in a group home without telling the agency of his condition and where he was without appropriate medical or psychological support. Although Lawrence is currently hospitalized with severe AIDS-related illnesses, CWA plans for Lawrence to return to the group home, if he ever recovers enough to be discharged.

Bill and Victoria G., 10- and 14-year-old siblings who may be removed from a loving foster home of ten years and returned to their father, an alcoholic and chronic schizophrenic, because CWA has refused numerous requests and even court orders to complete the routine paperwork that would make the brother and sister eligible for adoption. Their father is resistant to treatment for his illnesses and the children report that he has beaten and refused to feed them during visits. Still, he may regain custody because of CWA's negligence and inaction.

Shauna D., a two-year-old girl who continues to live with her drug-addicted mother, despite repeated reports from neighbors to CWA that the girl is being abused, and that her mother openly uses drugs on the street. Today's suit charges that, although the mother has had six other children removed from her custody due to abuse and neglect, CWA's investigation consisted only of a telephone call to the mother, and CWA's acceptance of her statement that she would stop using drugs and seek treatment.

Thomas C., a 15-year-old boy, in foster care since he was 7, has been repeatedly physically and sexually abused. After failing to provide an appropriate placement or develop an adequate plan for Thomas, CWA allowed a minister to take him to South Carolina without investigating his out-of-state home as required by law or ensuring that the Interstate Compact on Placement of Children was complied with. Thomas was sexually abused by the minister and only escaped by running away to the police. He is now at a residential treatment center, and though he is legally free for adoption, CWA has done nothing to secure an adoptive home for him. Thomas has tried to commit suicide twice by attempting to jump off the roof of the treatment center.

Each of the named plaintiffs has been paired with a Next Friend. Next Friends are citizens concerned about children, who have agreed to represent the plaintiffs, who as minors cannot participate in the lawsuit alone. These distinguished citizens include, among others Mitchell I. Ginsberg, Professor and Dean Emeritus of Columbia University School of Social Work for Lawrence B; Dr. Margaret T. McHugh, Director of Adolescent Ambulatory Services and the Child Protection Team at Bellevue Hospital for Thomas C.; and, Juan A. Figueroa, President and General Counsel of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund for Darren and David F.

Today's legal action charges that the named plaintiffs are representative of thousands of more cases where CWA has failed to provide legally mandated services. "The experiences and current situations of the...plaintiffs are neither unusual nor aberrational," charges the lawsuit. "Rather, they are... examples of the defendants' systemic failure to fulfill their legal responsibilities... and their deliberate indifference to the needs of the children" reliant upon them."

The lawsuit also charges that these problems are long-standing and well-known to the officials in charge of the CWA, and that they are "directly attributable to the manner in which the defendants have chosen to run the City's child welfare system."

"We are asking the court to rescue New York City's child welfare system from political appointees and number crunchers, whose chief priorities seem to be trimming budgets and closing cases," said Lowry. "This situation will only get worse if the City of New York continues to run CWA. Elimination of minimal income guarantees to destitute families will push still more children into this system, at a time when City 'budget reform' is trying to push kids out even faster."

Lawyers for Children, Inc. founded in 1984, provides free legal and social work services to children who are before the courts in foster care, abuse and neglect, termination of parental rights, and custody proceedings. Because so many of the vulnerable children it represents are adrift in the foster care system and are victims of physical and sexual abuse, LFC provides an attorney and a social worker to advocate for each of its young clients both in and out of the courtroom. LFC's experience in providing direct services to over 15,000 children has led to a commitment to impact litigation and innovative projects which enhance LFC's ability to advocate for and protect children in foster care.

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.