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FILE NO., COURT, AND DATE FILED
3:10-cv-30073 (D. Mass. Apr. 15, 2010)
CITATION
None
ATTORNEYS FOR PLAINTIFFS
Marcia Robinson Lowry
Susan Lambiase
Sara Michelle Bartosz
Laurence D. Borten
Kara Morrow
Children's Rights, Inc.
330 Seventh Avenue, Fourth Floor
New York, New York 10001
(212) 683-2210
Fax: (212) 683-4015
mlowry(at)childrensrights.org
Daniel J. Gleason
Mary K. Ryan
Jonathan D. Persky
Nutter McClennen & Fish, LLP
Seaport West
155 Seaport Boulevard
Boston, MA 02210-2604
(617) 439-2000
Fax: (617) 310-9000
dgleason(at)nutter.com
ISSUES
This class action lawsuit was filed against the Massachusetts Governor, the Secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services, and the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families in April 2010. The complaint alleges that Defendants are violating the constitutional rights of foster children by placing them in dangerous and unstable placements after removing them from their families’ care. According to plaintiffs’ complaint, Massachusetts’s foster youth suffer abuse in state-supervised placements at almost four times the national average and a third of Massachusetts foster youth get shuffled between at least five different placements during their time in the foster care system. The complaint also alleges that the state has failed for the last decade to prepare and support adequately families for reunification.
HISTORY AND STATUS
Plaintiffs, six children who have been harmed in Massachusetts’s foster care system, filed this lawsuit in federal court on April 15, 2010. On that same day, plaintiffs also filed a motion to certify the case as a class action.
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