LA County seeks dismissal of lawsuit by woman, 42, who alleges abuse as foster child

Attorneys for Los Angeles County are asking a judge to dismiss a lawsuit by a woman alleging she was sexually abused as a child by three members of her foster home household and that she was impregnated at age 13, arguing in their new court papers that the plaintiff told her social workers at the time that she liked living at the foster home and wanted to stay.

The plaintiff is now 42 years old and is identified only as F.M. in the Los Angeles Superior Court negligence suit, in which she also alleges her case worker arranged for her to have an abortion and kept her in the home for another two years, where she maintains she suffered further abuse.

“Though what plaintiff claims to have experienced is tragic, the evidence does not support a finding of liability against the county,” the defense attorneys state in court papers filed Wednesday, May 10, with Judge Wendy Chang. “The uncontroverted evidence shows that social workers maintained monthly face- to-face contact with her throughout the years she lived in the foster home.”

F.M. testified in a deposition that she did not report 99% of the alleged sexual abuse to any social worker until after she was removed from the foster home and that she does not know if an investigation was conducted for the single instance of sexual abuse she claims to have reported, according to the county attorneys’ court papers. The county Department of Children and Family Services records show that when allegations of sexual abuse were received by the department, swift and prompt investigations were conducted, F.M. was directly interviewed and she denied any abuse, according to the county lawyers’ court papers, which further state that department records show F.M. repeatedly told her social workers that she liked living in the foster home and wanted to remain there. The DCFS placed F.M. and her sister, J.M., in foster care for about 13 years beginning in 1984, the suit filed in July 2021 states.

“The foster parents … were approved, licensed, trained, supervised and/or compensated by defendants,” the suit states.

F.M.’s foster father repeatedly  sexually assaulted and abused F.M., as did the plaintiff’s two foster brothers, according to the suit.

In  1993, when F.M. was 13 years old, she contracted a sexually transmitted disease as the result of one of the brother’s sexual assaults and she also experienced pain in her private parts, so her foster mother took her to a doctor, the suit states.

“At the doctor’s office, she was diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease and advised that she was five months pregnant,” the suit states.

F.M.’s pregnancy was reported to her case worker, who told her to get an abortion and took her to a clinic to have it done, according to the suit. The DCFS kept F.M. and her sister in the foster home for another two years and the two foster brothers continued to molest her, the suit states. The DCFS knew or had reason to know about the one foster brother’s abuse and impregnation of F.M., and the subsequent abortion, but “covered up their knowledge of (the foster brother’s) sexual abuse of plaintiff, thereby allowing such further abuse to continue,” according to the suit.

But according to the county attorneys’ court papers, there is no evidence that DCFS social workers knew that any of F.M’s  alleged abusers “had a propensity for sexual abuse” and the defense lawyers further say the plaintiff cannot prove that any of the alleged abusers had a criminal record that would have prevented her placement in the foster home. In addition, social worker decisions involving the placement of children in foster homes, the monitoring and supervision of them while they are in the homes, investigations of abuse and the removal of children from foster homes are all decisions that are discretionary and therefore, cannot serve as the basis for liability against social workers, the county attorneys state in their court papers.

A hearing on the county’s dismissal motion is scheduled July 25.

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