Chicago Injury Lawyer Blog

I. FACTS

Child 1, Child 2, and Child 3 were physically, sexually, emotionally, and mentally abused and neglected and malnourished while in the defendants’ foster care system. Defendant, The Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago, is a social service agency that was required by contract with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services to place the children in a foster home and monitor their placement. Defendants The Catholic Bishop of Chicago and The Archdiocese of Chicago are the principals of Catholic Charities.

The defendants failed to place the minor plaintiffs with a qualified foster parent, failed to properly investigate co-defendant Foster Parent prior to placing the children in her care, failed to conduct sufficient or adequate home visits of the foster home, failed to grant Foster Parent’s request to have the children removed from her home, and allowed the minor plaintiffs to remain with Foster Parent after her license expired.

Attached hereto as Exhibit A, is a letter Catholic Charities sent to The Grandmother, the maternal grandmother of the children, after the children were removed from the Foster Parent foster home. Catholic Charities describes the reports Foster Parent made concerning Child 1 and Child 2’s inappropriate sexual behavior while they were still in Foster Parent’s care. The letter also describes some of the pain, suffering, and aberrant behaviors the children demonstrated after their removal from Foster Parent’s home.

The children were placed into foster care when Child 3 tested positive for heroin at birth on December 3, 1994. There is no evidence that the children had been abused prior to this time, and DCFS did not indicate their home for abuse.

Catholic Charities contracted with DCFS to provide foster homes and supervise the foster care of the children DCFS assigned to them. The defendants recruited, investigated, trained, and licensed Foster Parent as a foster parent in 1994. On February 7, 1995, the defendants placed the children in Foster Parent’s home. The defendants were required by DCFS regulations to monitor the foster care of the children, including making home visits to the Foster Parent foster home three times each month. The defendants never made the required three home visits to the Foster Parent foster home in any month.

The children were finally removed from the Foster Parent foster home on May 7, 1997. On May 5, 1997, school personnel reported to the defendants that Child 1 was crying when he arrived at school and had a large bump on his head. Child 1 told the school personnel that his foster mother hit him. Upon further investigation, the school personnel discovered blood in Child 1’s underwear and fresh cigarette burns on his inner legs, thighs, and buttocks. The school made a hotline report to DCFS and reported its findings to the defendants.

On May 6, 1997, physicians at The University of Chicago Hospital reported to the defendants that Child 2 was suffering from full thickness burns to both hands because Foster Parent forcibly placed them in boiling water.

During their placement in the Foster Parent foster home, the children were made to sleep under their beds with pillow cases placed over their heads and tied around their necks. They were not allowed to eat at a table and were made to eat off of the floor. The minor plaintiffs were not allowed to use a toilet. The children were not allowed to bathe in a bathtub or shower. The defendants failed to discover or prevent any of the aforementioned abuse.

Plaintiff has retained Generva Berger, the former Foster Care Division Chief of the California DCFS, as her social work and foster care expert. Please see the disclosure of Ms. Berger’s opinions, attached hereto as Exhibit B).

During their placement in the Foster Parent foster home, the minor plaintiffs were sexually abused. Upon their removal from the home, Child 2 was found to have a rectal prolapse and labial adhesions. After his removal, Child 1 was sexually aggressive towards other children. Child 2 experienced nightmares and would scream that “Uncle Jim” was coming to get her. Child 2 also approached men, placed her mouth near their waistline, and commented that the men were “giving me some .”

Child 3 was never removed from her crib during her time in the Foster Parent foster home. Child 3 was not read to or provided with the stimulation necessary for adequate brain development. Upon her removal from the Foster Parent foster home, Child 3 suffered from a seizure disorder and hemiperesis.

During their placement, the minor plaintiffs were malnourished. At the time of her removal from the Foster Parent foster home, Child 2 was reported as having a “wasted” appearance. The school reported to the defendants that Child 1 was attempting to find food out of garbage cans and was asking for seconds at snack time.

Defendants failed to investigate placement of the children with a relative.

The defendants were required by DCFS regulations and by foster care standards to attempt to place the minor plaintiffs with a relative. The defendants knew that the minor plaintiffs’ maternal grandmother lived in the State of New York. However, the defendants never contacted the Grandmother to determine her willingness to take custody of the minor plaintiffs. Lisa Vaughns, defendants’ employee, testified that the defendants did not contact the Grandmother because the minor plaintiff’s mother did not want them placed with their grandmother because the Grandmother is a Jehovah’s Witness.

The children also had maternal relatives in the Chicago area who were willing and able to take custody of the minor plaintiffs. The defendants never attempted to contact these individuals either.

Defendants failed to properly investigate the foster home.

The defendants placed the children into the foster home of co-defendant Foster Parent, even though she had previously requested that only boys be placed in her care.

On April 7, 1994, Foster Parent filled out an application with the defendants wherein she stated she worked the night shift at Thorek Hospital. Throughout the minor plaintiff’s placement with Foster Parent, the defendants believed that Foster Parent remained employed at Thorek Hospital and worked the night shift. The defendants did not verify Foster Parent’s employment and never sought an employment reference for Foster Parent. In fact, Foster Parent was never employed by Throek Hospital.

The defendants, believed that Foster Parent was working at night, and believed that a substitute care provider was coming into the home to care for the children when Foster Parent was at work. Despite this belief, the defendants never even asked Foster Parent to identify the substitute care provider who was coming into her home to care for the children during the nighttime hours. The defendants did not investigate or perform a background check on the substitute care provider.

Defendants failed to make their required home visits

The defendants were required by DCFS regulations, foster care standards, and their own care plan to make home visits to the Foster Parent foster home three separate times each month. The defendants assigned two caseworkers to the Foster Parent foster home to carry out its care plan. The defendants were required to inspect the home and remove the children from Foster Parent’s presence during their home visits to determine whether their needs were being met. The defendants never visited the Foster Parent foster home three times in any single month. The defendants did not inspect the home during their home visits and never removed the children from Foster Parent’s care to interview them separately.

The defendants were frequently unable to contact Foster Parent because her telephone did not work, which violated requirements of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. The defendants were unable to make any contact with Foster Parent for the nine-week period prior to April 1, 1997, and the defendants did not monitor the foster care being provided to the minor plaintiffs during that time.

School personnel visited the home on one occasion and observed that the children acted as though they were afraid of Foster Parent. The representatives were bothered by Foster Parent’s tone with the children and observed Foster Parent slap Child 2 on the legs for not sitting still.

Child 1 and Child 2 testified that the defendants’ caseworkers never came into the home. Child 1 testified that Foster Parent had attempted to burn his hands in water on an occasion prior to the day she burned Child 2’s hands. Child 1 further testified that Foster Parent cut him on the outer thigh with a knife. Child 1 also testified that he attempted to escape the home and get help, but Foster Parent caught him. If anyone had attempted to ask the children how they were getting along in the home, the children would have told of the torture they were enduring and they would have been removed.

Because the defendants failed to make adequate or sufficient home visits, the defendants did not discover or prevent the abuse and neglect that the children were enduring in the home. Because the defendants failed to make adequate or sufficient home visits, the minor plaintiffs continued to be abused and neglected.

Defendants failed to investigate specific reports that indicated abuse.

The defendants were aware that the minor plaintiffs were exhibiting inappropriate sexual behavior. Foster Parent reported that Child 1 liked to “peep” while she was changing. Later, Foster Parent reported that Child 2 began to masturbate and hump toys. Representatives of the school wrote a letter to the defendants in which they reported that Child 1 and Child 2 acted as though they were husband and wife. (Exhibit C).

During their placement, the defendants also ignored reports that suggested the minor plaintiffs were being malnourished. The school reported to the defendants that Child 1 was attempting to find food out of garbage cans and was asking for seconds at snack time. (Exhibit C).

Despite this information, the defendants did nothing to investigate whether the minor plaintiffs were being sexually abused, sexualized, or malnourished in the Foster Parent foster home. Likewise, the defendants did not make hotline reports concerning this behavior to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.

Defendants failed to grant Foster Parent’s request to remove the children.

On December 11, 1996, Cher Sturgies, a Catholic Charities caseworker who had recently been assigned to the Foster Parent foster home spoke with her supervisor, Jim Boggess, about the placement of the children. Sturgies made a note of this conversation.

The note states:
“Talked to Jim about children and upcoming court ate. He emphasized the need for an alternate foster placement.” (See the contact note, attached hereto as Exhibit D.)

Sturgies testified that Boggess informed her at their December 11, 1996 meeting that Foster Parent had been requesting that Catholic Charities find a different foster home for the children. Boggess said that Foster Parent had been making this request for several months.

The next day, Sturgies made her first home visit to the Foster Parent foster home. Foster Parent informed Sturgies that she wanted the children removed from her home. Foster Parent further stated that she had been requesting their removal for at least nine months.

Sturgies testified that after her initial home visit, Foster Parent repeatedly asked the defendants to remove the children from her home and to find an alternate foster care placement for them. Sturgies spoke with Boggess concerning Foster Parent’s removal requests and Boggess told her to discuss the matter with the licensing department.

Sturgies testified that she told the licensing department that Foster Parent had been requesting that the children be removed from her home for several months. Sturgies emphasized that Foster Parent said she was worn out and was unable to care for the children any longer. Sturgies testified that the licensing department told her it was aware of Foster Parent’s request, but it refused to remove the children because it believed that Foster Parent wanted them removed simply because she had a new boyfriend.

Defendants allowed the continued placement after Foster Parent’s license expired.

On January 10, 1997, Foster Parent’s foster home licensed expired. The defendants allowed the minor plaintiffs to remain in an unlicensed foster home after January 10, 1997.

Defendants’ records of Foster Parent’s foster care.

The record is clear that Sturgies, Boggess, and the licensing department were all aware that Foster Parent had been requesting that the children be removed from her home since at least March, 1995. Despite this fact, defendants have not produced any documentation, with the exception of the single entry on Exhibit D, concerning Foster Parent’s request or any decisions it made with respect to her request.

Sturgies testified that she made notes concerning Foster Parent’s request that the children be removed from her care. Sturgies testified that after the children were removed from Foster Parent’s care, all of her notes concerning Foster Parent’s requests to have the children removed were missing. Sturgies also testified that Boggess made her change her case notes with respect to the children.

Boggess maintained a personal file concerning the minor plaintiffs. The defendants likewise have not produced Jim Boggess’ personal file concerning the minor plaintiffs. Sturgies testified that Boggess’ supervisor made Boggess alter his case notes with respect to the children.

Plaintiff will seek an Illinois Pattern Instruction 5.01 concerning Cher Sturgies’ missing case notes, Boggess’ missing personal file, and all case notes that the defendant caused to be altered.

II. DAMAGES

Jill Glick, M.D., is Child 2’s treating physician and is the Medical Director of the Child Protective Services team at the University of Chicago. Dr. Glick is responsible for all of the clinical, administrative, and educational responsibilities at the University of Chicago with regard to the evaluation and treatment of children with suspected child abuse or neglect. Because of Child 2’s severe burns, which required extensive ongoing medical treatment, the treating physicians are more familiar with Child 2’s abuse. Dr. Glick opined, though, that based on the extensive and comprehensive nature of Child 2’s abuse, Child 1 and Child 3 were also likely abused in the home.

At the University of Chicago, Child 2 was diagnosed with failure to thrive. Radiological studies showed an arrest of growth that occurred within approximately two months prior to her presentation. These findings demonstrate that the children were malnourished in the Foster Parent foster home. Child 2 also suffered a fractured right elbow that required surgical pinning. Child 1 testified he observed Foster Parent throw Child 2 against a wall just prior to forcing her hands into a pot of boiling water.

Child 1 and Child 2 were old enough at the time of their abuse that they will continue to re-experience the trauma they suffered in the Foster Parent foster home. With respect to Child 2, Dr. Glick testified:

A. At her age of being three, three to four, she was almost four, I guess, really when you think about it, right, at the time, she'll have a memory of this injury and she will also have scars, memories, emotionally and physically, from the burn. So posttraumatic stress disorder in terms of anxiety, ability to trust, all those can manifest anytime in her life, depending, even with therapy. I'm not an expert in telling you how effective therapy is. I think it's a very subjective area myself. And also the outcome of measuring how successful. I mean if you're a physician and you were abused, are you successful? Do you still have night terrors? So I really can't speculate or really tell you, but I can tell you that many, many children who have memory of being abused truthfully do have posttraumatic stress disorder; also, as I say, attachment disorders in terms of trust. Number one about this child.

Number two, the malnourishment. Again, I only had one dot in her life. I didn't have all the dots. So I don't know the etiology of her growth failure, but any kind of growth failure in a child with no underlying metabolic or organ system cause, meaning congestive heart failure, lung disease, prematurity, she didn't have any of those, so any time you have any kind of malnourishment, you have developmental delay, and so one worries about that this child is not going to reach her potential that she was born with. So that's the other concern with the failure to thrive.

And the third point, if we look at paragraph No. 2, is that she did display some sexualized behavior in our hospital. Needless to say, we're extremely concerned that she had been sexually abused at the age of three-and-a-half to four. Her sexualized behavior of masturbation, holding dolls funny, any of those kind of behaviors which Child Life had discussed in the chart leads one to be very concerned that she was also sexually abused at some point. So when you put those three together, this child, we'll state, is a very vulnerable child, number one, in terms of her attachment ability and long-term concerns for mental health.

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Q. Would you recommend for Child 2 a lifetime of counseling or other assistance?

A. I think this child, depending on life cycle issues, will always need counseling. Often we find that children who have been particularly sexually abused or seriously physically abused as a child, depending on what kind of new stressors or new things they engage in, will in fact relive or have issues of adaptation, for instance, in your 20's, in developing relationships with a significant other. I guarantee she will need help. She'll want counseling to help her understand how to trust. She might have sexuality issues that come from this as well. I mean she might have sexual identity concerns. That's affiliated. I'm not saying it's necessarily causally, but there are some issues there. So I would say it would be very nice if this child would always have the opportunity as an adult or teenager transitioning into adulthood, and even in adulthood, I would speculate that therapy would be something that would be optimal for her.

Jeri Morris, Ph.D., plaintiff’s retained neuropsychologist, has opined that Child 1, Child 2, and Child 3 have all suffered alterations in their personalities as a result of the abuse and neglect they suffered in the Foster Parent foster home. (See the disclosure of Dr. Morris’ opinions, attached hereto as Exhibit D). All of the children experience social adjustment disorders and will be unable to be separated from one another. They are impaired in their judgment abilities and will be unable to fend for themselves. All of the children will find it difficult to build and maintain relationships. All of the children have impaired judgment and are vulnerable to being taken advantage of by others. All of the children will be limited occupationally because they test far below expected levels as a result of the abuse and neglect they suffered in the Foster Parent foster home.

As a result of these injuries, the children will need psychotherapy for life and will need the availability of twenty-four hour supervision for life to help them deal with problems of daily living and help them make decisions. The children will also benefit from a therapeutic school setting where their unique emotional and cognitive impairments will be accommodated.

Child 1 suffers from extreme guilt and rage as a result of the abuse he suffered in the Foster Parent foster home and as a result of being unable to protect his sisters from also suffering from abuse in the home. Child 1 observed his sisters being abused and neglected and testified that Foster Parent cut him with a knife on his outer thigh. He further testified about being sexually abused and having blood in his underwear. Dr. Morris has opined that Child 1 suffers extensive learning disabilities and behavioral problems as a result of the severe abuse he suffered as a toddler. (See Dr. Morris’ report for Child 1 , attached hereto as Exhibit E).

Child 2 has the most visible signs of the abuse she and her siblings suffered in the Foster Parent foster home. Child 2 presently has contractures of her fingers and the skin between her fingers has webbed together. (See copies of recent photographs of Child 2’s hands, attached as Exhibit F). Other children are quite cruel and continue to torment Child 2 with respect to the appearance of her hands.

The stocking line distribution of the burns with the clear lines of demarcation of the affected skin, along with the fact that there were no burns or marks from splashing water, has led all of the treating physicians to conclude that Child 2’s hands were forcibly held in extremely hot water.

Dr. Lawrence Zachary, Child 2’s treating plastic surgeon, took skin grafts from Child 2’s legs and attempted to reconstruct Child 2’s hands and fingers. Child 2’s recovery from her burns was excruciating. Her treating physicians and subsequent foster parent describe the trauma involved with her daily physical therapy as unforgettable. Because Child 2 was unable to be adequately calmed with medications while her therapists repeatedly stretched her fingers, she frequently screamed until she became catatonic.

Dr. Zachary recently examined Child 2’s hands and testified that she needs further surgery to release her contractures and web spacing. Dr. Zachary’s report is attached hereto as Exhibit G.

Child 2 suffers from a learning disability as a result of the abuse and neglect she suffered in the Foster Parent foster home. She also has the added disability and limitations of her hands. Child 2 will be unable to reach her earning capacity as a result of the physical, emotional, and mental injuries she suffers as a result of the abuse and neglect she suffered in the Foster Parent foster home. (See Dr. Morris’ report with respect to her evaluation of Child 2, attached hereto as Exhibit H).

Child 3 suffers from significant brain impairment as a result of the abuse and neglect she endured in the Foster Parent foster home. Because she was not provided with the proper stimulation and nutrition, her brain did not develop adequately and she suffers from significant cognitive limitations. Child 3 is in special education and scores in the first to fifth percentiles on standardized tests. While in the home, Child 3 experienced seizures and hemiparesis, which Dr. Morris has testified were caused by the abuse and neglect she suffered in the Foster Parent foster home. (See Dr. Morris’ report with respect to her evaluation of Child 3, attached hereto as Exhibit I).

The plaintiff has retained Anthony Gamboa, Ph.D. to render opinions on the present cash value of the childrens’ lost earning capacity and future healthcare and medical plan. Dr. Gamboa has opined that the present cash value of the future healthcare and medical plan for the children is between $10,514,638 and $19,405,047. Dr. Gamboa has opined that the present cash value of Child 1 ’s lost earning capacity is between $1,199,043 and $2,076,326. Dr. Gamboa has opined that the present cash value of Child 2 ’s lost earning capacity is between $1,149,792 and $1,535,768. Lastly, Dr. Gamboa has opined that the present cash value of Child 3 ’s lost earning capacity is between $952,528 and $1,535,768.