$2.9 Million Settlement for Parents of Girl, 12, Who Died at Residential Facility
After trial: Settlement, with no court finding of liability. The action was dismissed in October 2021, reinstated by the Eighth Circuit on August 2, 2022, and settled on remand, with dismissal entered April 19, 2023.
Won by Robins Kaplan LLP.
A twelve-year-old girl died while in the care of a residential treatment facility in North Dakota. Her parents' federal civil rights action was dismissed by the district court, reinstated by the Eighth Circuit in 2022, and settled on remand for $2.9 million, reported as the largest known civil rights settlement in the state.
What happened
A twelve-year-old girl died while she was in the care of the Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch, a residential treatment facility in North Dakota. The courts identify her only as A.A.R., a minor, and so do we.
Her parents brought a federal action, individually and on behalf of her heirs at law, in January 2021.
The district court dismissed it in October 2021. That would ordinarily be the end. On August 2, 2022 the Eighth Circuit reinstated the case, and it settled on remand, with the action dismissed on April 19, 2023.
The parents received $2,900,000. The Ranch's counsel described the terms as confidential. Robins Kaplan separately describes it as the largest known civil rights settlement in North Dakota.
One point of legal architecture is worth drawing out, because it explains the size. The claim that survived and drove the settlement was a federal civil rights claim, which no state damages cap reaches. Had the same facts been pleaded as ordinary negligence, a residential psychiatric treatment facility could plausibly qualify as a health care provider under North Dakota law, which would have exposed the non-economic damages to the state's $500,000 medical cap. The case never got there. Framing it as a constitutional claim rather than a malpractice claim is very likely why.
The family was represented by Robert Bennett of Robins Kaplan.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.InForum·Archived copy
- 2.Eighth Circuit opinion No. 21-3550 (Aug. 2, 2022), Benton, J., reinstating the action·Archived copy
- 3.District court's October 18, 2021 dismissal order, the source of the 'A.A.R., a minor' caption and of the single-decedent scope
- 4.D.N.D. docket No. 3:21-cv-00003: the filing and termination dates and Bennett as the filer on plaintiffs' filings
- 5.Minnesota Lawyer, January 9, 2020, establishing independently that Robert Bennett was at Robins Kaplan by 2023·Archived copy
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