Foster Care/Disabled Persons Damages

Protecting The Rights Of Children, The Developmentally Disabled And Other Vulnerable Persons Injured In The Care Of The State And Other Providers

Protecting the needs and rights of society’s most vulnerable citizens is a core mission of Colodny, Fass, Talenfeld, Karlinsky and Abate, P.A. Through our precedent-setting actions, our lawyers are well known nationally as champions of the rights of children and the developmentally disabled in personal injury claims for damages and for systemic reform. This practice area is led by Shareholder Howard Talenfeld, who is Founding President of Florida's Children First, and who is nationally recognized for his work with foster care and disabilities class action and damages claims in Florida.

Where other firms focus on traditional personal injury law, our firm provides for the unique representation of children, the developmentally disabled, the mentally ill, and other persons damaged in foster care or adult institutions. We are able to protect those injured as a result of the negligence, the violations of civil rights, and of statutes designed to protect these vulnerable persons.

Long ago we saw the critical need to protect these people. Since that time, our successes have changed case law – and the status and care of these important populations. In 1998, the firm instituted a class action with the Youth Law Center against the Department of Children and Family Services (“DCF”), Ward v. Kearney, which led to a consent decree and significant institutional reforms in the Broward County, Florida, foster care system. Equally as important, it more than doubled the state’s budget for the county’s child welfare system.

When children or other persons in the care of the state or private providers have suffered injuries, our unique approaches have led to the recovery of damage awards on their behalf. We know these systems well because our firm represented the State of Florida Department of Health & Rehabilitative Services as outside counsel in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s in the class actions involving foster care, the children’s mental health system, the adult mental health system, and Medicaid for failing to meet federal and constitutional minimum standards.

The firm was one of the first nationally to utilize the federal civil rights damage statute (42 USC § 1983) to recover damages for injured foster children. In its 2001 case Roe v. Florida Department of Children & Family Services, 176 F. Supp. 2d 1310 (S.D. Fla. 2001), the firm recovered a five million dollar damage award, an amount in excess of Florida’s sovereign immunity limit of $100,000, on behalf of six foster children. This case was featured on ABC’s 20/20 in May of 2002 and then later in December of 2006. After helping many other foster children recover damages against the state and other private providers, in 2007, the firm won a settlement of more than $14 million dollars, the largest recovery ever in Florida, for 20 foster children who were abused in a foster home.

To protect the developmentally disabled and the mentally retarded, the firm also has used similar creativity. In 1999, in Baumstein v. Sunrise Communities, 738 So. 2d 420 (Fla. 3d DCA 1999) our attorneys successfully argued in the Third District Court of Appeal to establish a private cause of action for damages based upon the violation of Florida’s Bill of Rights for the developmentally disabled under § 393.13, Florida Statutes. This decision was the first to recognize this approach which led to a significant settlement of this wrongful death damages claim for the improper treatment of Karen Baumstein.

The firm also assisted in drafting and passing the Florida Bill of Rights for Dependent Children (§ 39.4085 Florida Statutes) and Florida's first pilot program for attorneys-ad-litem for Dependent Children (39.4086 Florida Statutes). The firm also was instrumental in the creation of Florida’s Children First, (www.Floridaschildrenfirst.org), the State’s leading child advocacy organization dedicated to the protection of the legal rights of at-risk children, especially those in foster care.

Whether in the local courtroom, the state capital or federal court system, at Colodny, Fass, Talenfeld, Karlinsky and Abate, P.A., our mission is to protect the rights of the state’s most vulnerable people – regardless of whether they are our clients. It’s not just good law. It’s the right thing to do.