LOS ANGELES (CNS) – The Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved a $6 million payout for a woman who said her 15-month-old baby was seized by county social workers against her rights.<\/p>\n
The decision to settle followed a board vote in June 2017 to appeal a jury’s decision to award $3.1 million in compensatory damages to Rafaelina Duval<\/strong>. The panel found in November 2016 that the county’s actions amounted to unwarranted seizure of the child with malice, but denied punitive damages to Duval.<\/p>\n That $3.1 million judgment included $165,000 awarded because Duval was deemed to be the victim of discrimination.<\/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 jury verdict.<\/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.<\/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.<\/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.<\/p>\n County attorneys said at the time that social workers saved Ryan’s life and that his father — who was granted custody — is taking good care of him.<\/p>\n Duval had visitation privileges but said following the November 2017 verdict that she was able to see her son for only a half-hour every two weeks.<\/p>\n “No amount of money can ever replace what they took from me,” Duval said.<\/p>\n Defense attorney Tomas Guterres had urged jurors not to award punitive damages, telling the panelists that it could result in social workers being afraid to intervene in time-critical cases of severe abuse without a warrant.<\/p>\n The Department of Children and Family Services does not comment on individual cases, citing confidentiality of records.<\/p>\n Documents provided to the board recommended settlement, citing “the high risks and uncertainties of litigation” and noting “a reasonable settlement at this time will avoid future litigation costs.”<\/p>\n In addition to the $6 million settlement, the county has paid out than $2 million in legal fees and costs.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LOS ANGELES (CNS) – The Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved a $6 million payout for a woman who said her 15-month-old baby was seized by county social workers against her rights. The decision to settle followed a board vote in June 2017 to appeal a jury’s decision to award $3.1 million in compensatory damages to […]<\/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":[15,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84200"}],"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=84200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}