{"id":77092,"date":"2017-06-14T14:43:47","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T21:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theavtimes.com\/?p=77092"},"modified":"2017-06-20T17:40:42","modified_gmt":"2017-06-21T00:40:42","slug":"la-county-votes-to-appeal-3-1-million-judgment-in-dcfs-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/2017\/06\/14\/la-county-votes-to-appeal-3-1-million-judgment-in-dcfs-case\/","title":{"rendered":"LA County votes to appeal $3.1 million judgment in DCFS case"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to appeal a $3.1 million judgment awarded to a woman who said her 15-month-old baby was seized by county social workers against her rights.<\/span><\/p>\n

In November, a jury found that the county’s actions amounted to unwarranted seizure of the child with malice, but denied punitive damages to Rafaelina Duval.<\/strong> The $3.1 million is compensatory damages and includes $165,000 awarded because Duval was judged to be the victim of discrimination.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her son, Ryan<\/strong>, was taken on Nov. 3, 2009, after social workers Kimberly Rogers and Susan Pender accused Duval of general neglect and intentionally starving the boy, according to a statement issued by Duval’s attorney, Shawn McMillan, following the verdict.<\/span><\/p>\n

McMillan said they also accused Duval of suffering from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a mental illness that causes caregivers to lie about or exaggerate childhood illnesses to garner sympathy for themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

Duval alleged that the social workers made the decision to take her son away after her father called them “white trash” and accused them of racism.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The law is very clear and the social workers get training on this, you cannot seize a child from its parents unless there’s an emergency,” McMillan said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Defense attorneys said the social workers saved Ryan’s life and that his father — who was granted custody — is taking good care of him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Duval has visitation privileges but said she is able to see her son for only a half-hour every two weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n

“No amount of money can ever replace what they took from me,” Duval said in the November statement.<\/span><\/p>\n

Defense attorney Tomas Guterres had urged jurors against awarding punitive damages, telling the panel that it could result in social workers being afraid to intervene in time-critical cases of severe abuse without a warrant.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because the matter was considered in a closed-door session, no board documents were provided to the public and the board offered no comment beyond noting the 5-0 vote to appeal.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Department of Children and Family Services does not comment on individual cases, citing confidentiality of records.<\/span><\/p>\n

–<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to appeal a $3.1 million judgment awarded to a woman who said her 15-month-old baby was seized by county social workers against her rights. In November, a jury found that the county’s actions amounted to unwarranted seizure of the child with malice, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[719,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77092"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77092\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}