Sheriff’s deputies and welfare fraud investigators are mandated reporters when they spot children in abusive or neglected situations.
An off-duty deputy walked his dog along a suburban neighborhood road in San Bernardino County, California. In the distance, he heard clamoring. A group of boys were throwing rocks and debris at a vacant building. The deputy confronted the boys, threatening to write them tickets if they didn’t repair the damage. The boys followed his instructions. In the following months, the deputy befriended one of the boys — a 13-year-old from a neglected home. The boy was being brought up by a single mom who was struggling, leaving the boy for extended periods, not feeding him healthy food, and who the deputy believed was abusing drugs. Over the next year and a half, the deputy spent time with the boy, feeding him and playing video games at his house, taking him on camping trips, and building his trust. However, the deputy didn’t notify Child Protective Services (CPS), despite his mandated reporter responsibilities. The deputy testified that he considered reporting the neglect of the child by the mother to CPS, but he did not report because he did not want the boy to go into foster care, and thought he could do a better job helping the boy than CPS.
One day, approximately 1.5 years after the rock-throwing incident, the boy found a suspicious envelope addressed to his mom. Something about it didn’t sit right. The boy opened the envelope and found suspicious drugs in it. Turning to someone he thought he could trust, the boy gave the package to the deputy. The deputy tested the drugs in the sheriff’s department, confirmed it was methamphetamine and told the boy the results. In frustration and anger, after confronting his mother, the boy ran away from home. The mother called the sheriff’s department to report her child missing, and the deputy responded during work hours, in uniform and in a patrol car, to find the boy. Keane alleged that the deputy should have notified CPS at the time he tested the methamphetamine and responded to the missing child report because he was in the scope of his employment at those two times. Instead of making the mandated CPS report, however, he convinced the mother to let the boy move in with him. That’s when the sexual abuse began, and went on for years. In addition to the perpetrator himself, Keane alleged that other deputy sheriffs who knew the child was living with the deputy, and a welfare fraud investigator who investigated and participated in the prosecution of the mother for welfare fraud for receiving welfare while not housing or feeding the child, as well, should have but failed to report the neglect of the child by his mother.
Years later, the deputy was arrested and pled guilty to his crimes. However, the ordeal left lasting mental scars on the boy. He suffered severe PTSD and paralyzing agoraphobia that kept him from leaving his home or having meaningful relationships.
Attorneys Chris Keane of The Keane Law Firm, Michael Behm of Behm & Behm Law Firm, and Andrew Chang of Esner, Chang, Boyer & Murphy heard of the case from the survivor, who searched the internet for legal help. It took the survivor several unsuccessful tries with other law firms to take his case before he located Chris, but once he and the boy — now in his 20s — connected, Chris knew how to help him. Their first step: the trio filed a lawsuit against the County of San Bernardino for their mandated reporter employees’ repeated failures to connect the boy with CPS.
Initial obstacles were few but vast. Chris, Michael, and Andrew needed to pinpoint the legal duty owed by government employees in the context of the California Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act (CANRA). This was vital for circumventing any immunity claims. Additionally, the team had to show how the sexual assault could have been prevented had the deputy reported the boy’s neglect to CPS, and how those failures affected him. Finally, Chris needed to prove injury to the boy’s emotional state, his psychological condition, and the hardwiring in his brain to demonstrate just how ingrained the damage was.
Chris and his partners hired experts to testify from a variety of angles. They retained law enforcement experts, welfare fraud experts, and CPS experts to show how a report would have been received and acted upon. They called on child psychiatric and geriatric psychiatric experts to prove how the experience affected the boy and would affect him as he aged. Along those same lines, the team also brought in child abuse pediatric experts who discussed foreseeable problems for kids in this situation. Finally, they hired life care experts and economic experts to tackle the financial ramifications.
The Defense tried to side-step responsibility. They callously claimed that the abuse that happened after he turned 18 was consensual. They also argued that the deputy carried out the abuse outside the scope of authority of his employment. Then, they leaned heavily on the deputy’s Fifth Amendment right not to report, asserting he didn’t have a basis to do so. Finally, they insisted that other deputies also had no basis to suspect that the boy was being neglected.
Chris and his partners rebutted that authorities should have reported the mother’s neglect, theorizing that it would have led to a CPS report that would have prevented the abuse. Additionally, when the boy called the police on his mother for welfare fraud, the welfare fraud investigator looked inside the house and failed to make a report. Chris, Michael, and Andrew ran focus groups that concretely proved extensive psychological damage — results that failed to resonate with the Defense.
With the county refusing to acknowledge their fault in the boy’s abuse, Chris and his partners prepared for trial. They turned to DK Global to help them specifically demonstrate the connection between sexual assault, PTSD, and the victim’s agoraphobia. Chris used the Erikson Psychosocial Stage Inventory (EPSI) to show how the period of abuse affected the boy’s development and the hardwiring of his brain. The attorneys had two primary goals with the demonstrative: first, they wanted to highlight the significance of the abusive period in relation to the boy’s identity; second, they wanted to create a diagram connecting the brain internal damage to the boy’s private parts. The latter was intended to show how PTSD stored in the brain uses the same pathways activated during sexual experiences, thus concluding that the boy was unable to have a sexual experience without PTSD playing a role. The demonstrative morphed together an exhibit of the boy back to his state during the abuse, allowing the jury connect the dots regarding his stunted emotional growth.
The case was tried for a month in San Bernardino Superior Court. The judge expressed reservations about repeated references to the graphic nature of the sexual abuse of the child.However, Chris, Michael, and Andrew were ultimately able to communicate what they were trying to demonstrate – the connection between the PTSD, agoraphobia and the child sexual abuse – by using the tasteful but effective and accurate DK Global exhibit - to explain tough topics in their efforts as the only ones protecting this young boy.The jury deliberated for approximately 12 hours over a period of multiple days. They returned with a record verdict of $33,000,000 — believed to be the largest reported verdict for failure to report child neglect by mandated reporters.
Chris Keane of The Keane Law Firm has been rated as one of the leading Plaintiff’s lawyers in the United States, and his practice is focused on representing abused and injured children. He is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). Keane was named California’s “Street Fighter of the Year” in 2017 by the California Association of Consumer Attorneys for a precedent setting child abuse reporting case, was the 2021 Golden Advocate Award winner for Most Worthy Cause for another record verdict in a child abuse reporting case, and has recovered more than $70,000,000 for his clients.
Michael Behm of Behm & Behm Law Firm has been recognized as a Michigan Super Lawyer for the past 15 years, and is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). He has obtained multiple jury verdicts and settlements greater than $1,000,000 and served a three-year term on the State Bar of Michigan Representative Assembly. He is a regent of the University of Michigan, having been elected to his second eight-year term in 2022.
Andrew Chang is a partner at Esner, Chang, Boyer & Murphy and a certified specialist in appellate law. Chang served two years as a staff attorney at the California Supreme Court. He has participated in various seminars on appellate matters and is a previous chair of the State Bar’s Committee on Appellate Courts. Chang has been selected as a Northern California Super Lawyer every year since 2007 and was named the Appellate Lawyer of the Year by the Consumer's Attorney Association of Los Angeles for 2007.
