Jury Finds Los Angeles County 45 Percent Liable For Failing To Stop Child Sexual Abuse
After trial: The $45.4 million verdict was apportioned, leaving Los Angeles County liable for about $20.7 million as its 45 percent share. WitnessLA reported in January 2020 that the county reduced that to a $10.5 million judgment and paid the first $5.5 million during the 2018 to 2019 fiscal year, so the ranked figure here is the $10.5 million that stood against the county. Public sources do not identify the mechanism of the reduction and no appellate opinion in the case has been found. Recovery on the shares apportioned to the girl's mother and the four convicted men is not documented.
Won by Taylor & Ring, LLP.
A Los Angeles County jury found the county's Department of Children and Family Services 45 percent responsible for years of sexual abuse a girl suffered in her El Monte home, returning a $45.4 million verdict in July 2018 and splitting the rest of the fault between the girl's mother and four men who lived in the apartment. Two DCFS social workers had been monitoring the family and knew a man with an arrest record for sexual abuse of a minor was staying there, but never called the county hotline or the police. The county's 45 percent share, about $20.7 million, was later brought down to a $10.5 million judgment, of which the county paid $5.5 million in the 2018 to 2019 fiscal year. David Ring and Louanne Masry represented the girl at trial.
What happened
By 2010, a man named Louis Fluet was living in the El Monte apartment where a mother was raising her seven-year-old daughter. Fluet had an arrest record involving sexual abuse of a minor. Two Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services social workers, Elbis Severo and Lucia So, were monitoring the family after an earlier referral about one of the children, and Severo warned the mother she could lose custody if she let Fluet stay. The mother signed an affidavit saying he did not live there. Neither social worker called the county's child abuse hotline or notified El Monte police, and the county did not remove the girl from the home. Severo later recommended in writing that the case be closed.
Over the next two years the girl was repeatedly sexually abused in the apartment by men who lived or stayed there, among them Fluet and Tim Martinson. She disclosed the abuse in 2012, on a trip to New Mexico with her father, and was taken out of the home. Her mother and four of the men were later charged, tried and convicted. Trial testimony described flashbacks and nightmares, poor hygiene, fear driven behavior inside the home, and difficulty telling ordinary situations from abusive ones.
The girl's father, her legal guardian, sued Los Angeles County and DCFS on her behalf in Los Angeles Superior Court in June 2013, arguing that the social workers had a mandatory duty to report once they had reasonable suspicion the girl was being abused. The suit also named the girl's mother and the four men. The county's outside counsel, Christie Bodnar Swiss, argued that nothing available to the social workers in 2010 amounted to reasonable suspicion of sexual abuse, and that the county had no grounds to remove the girl before her 2012 disclosure.
The case was tried in July 2018. Jurors heard from the social workers, the mother, the father and the girl herself, and watched video depositions in which Fluet and Martinson denied abusing her. After deliberating about four and a half hours, the jury set total damages at $45.4 million on July 26, 2018, and apportioned fault: 45 percent to Los Angeles County, 45 percent to the girl's mother, and 10 percent collectively to the four men. The county's share came to roughly $20.7 million.
The county's share did not stay at that figure. Reviewing county litigation payouts in January 2020, WitnessLA reported that Los Angeles County brought the amount down from about $20.7 million to a $10.5 million judgment and paid the first $5.5 million of it during the 2018 to 2019 fiscal year. Public reporting does not say whether the reduction came from post trial motions, a negotiated compromise, or both, and no appellate opinion in the case has been located. What the girl and her mother and the four convicted men collected, if anything, is not public. By the time of trial the girl, then 15, was living with her father in New Mexico, attending high school and in ongoing therapy, and her father testified that she had begun talking about becoming an FBI agent.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.NBC Los Angeles, July 26, 2018: verdict amount and date, Los Angeles Superior Court venue, 45/45/10 liability split, county's share of about $20.6 million, David Ring named as the girl's attorney, social workers Elbis Severo and Lucia So, Louis Fluet's prior arrest record, jury deliberation of about four and a half hours
- 2.CBS News Los Angeles, July 2018: verdict amount and apportionment, the jury's reasonable suspicion finding against the two named social workers, June 2013 filing by the girl's father
- 3.SAC Media, July 20, 2018: day by day trial testimony, David Ring and Louanne Masry as plaintiff's counsel and Christie Bodnar Swiss as county counsel, Severo's warning to the mother and her affidavit, the 2012 disclosure to the father in New Mexico, the criminal convictions of the mother and four men, Fluet and Martinson video depositions, the girl's psychological symptoms
- 4.WitnessLA, January 31, 2020: the county reduced its roughly $20.7 million exposure to a $10.5 million judgment and paid the first $5.5 million in fiscal year 2018-2019
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