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Florida Foster Children’s Civil Rights Damage Award Case Used as Precedent in South Carolina Litigation

October 7th, 2011   No Comments   Abuse, Court Cases

The significant civil rights case argued by lead counsel Howard Talenfeld, partner with Colodny, Fass, Talenfeld, Karlinsky & Abate, P.A., recently was persuasive in the 4th Circuit Court of South Carolina’s decision to change its prior decisions regarding social worker qualified immunity and substantive due process rights of foster children in Doe v. South Carolina Department of Social Services [597 F.3d 163 (4th Cir. 2010)].

In the original case, H.A.L. v. Foltz, No. 07-15791 (11th Cir. 12/15/2008) (11th Cir., 2008), the 11th Circuit Court in Atlanta let stand an action brought by three young boys sexually abused by two older boys in the same Florida foster home. The court agreed in this significant civil rights case that the state had violated the children’s Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process rights to physical safety and to be free from an unreasonable risk of harm. Talenfeld won for his clients a settlement of $2.925 million – and a change in how the state must treat foster children.

Read the brief here.

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