Way Cleared for Suit Over Adoption

Chastising county adoption workers for “discharging societal burdens onto the unsuspecting or unwary,” a state appeals court Tuesday cleared the way for an adoptive parent to sue the Los Angeles County Department of Adoptions for concealing vital medical information about her adopted son.

The opinion written by Justice Armand Arabian of the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles reversed a lower court ruling and allowed Mary Trout to sue the adoption agency for negligence and fraud in the adoption of her son in May, 1970.

The son, Michael Jewell, now 18, was born with a port wine-colored stain on his upper torso and face and, about 10 years after the adoption, was diagnosed as suffering from Sturge-Weber Syndrome, a congenital degenerative nerve disorder.

Trout alleged that the county knew, or “in exercise of reasonable care should have known,” that the stain was a sign of Sturge-Weber Syndrome.

In a unanimous ruling, the appeals court rejected Superior Court Judge Jerry K. Fields’ earlier decision that the county agency was immune from liability in the case and found that “considerations of public policy” support legal action against the agency for “intentional misrepresentation or fraudulent concealment in the adoption process.”

“I’m surprised by the ruling, but then again, not so much,” said Trout’s attorney, Sheldon Rosenfield of Encino. “I really thought that the law was in our favor.”

California is one of only a handful of states that legally requires adoption agencies to disclose to adoptive parents all available information about a child and his biological parents.

Trout, who lives in Nevada, could not be reached for comment Tuesday. But the boy’s adoptive father, Edon Jewell of La Mirada, said he felt vindicated by the ruling.

“They should have told us,” he said of the county adoption workers who allegedly withheld medical information on his son who, he said, suffers from frequent epileptic seizures and emotional outbursts.

Edon Jewell, who now has custody of Michael, and his former wife adopted the boy when he was less than 2 months old, after county adoption workers arranged to show him to prospective parents by placing him on the Ben Hunter television show, which at the time was featured on KTTV Channel 11.

Because he was born with the stain, the adoption agency classified him as hard to place. The late Hunter often featured such children on his program.

According to the appeals court decision, Mary Trout inquired about the stain at the time of the adoption but was told that there was no cause for concern.

The decision added, however, that Trout was not shown county records stating that the doctor who examined the baby before the adoption “would not make a definite statement as to the prognosis for this child.”

“That was the smoking gun,” Arabiansaid in an interview.

“Mary, who did not have the ability to make such a determination herself, would not have adopted Michael if she had known that the stain was a manifestation or symptom of this disorder,” the justice wrote in his ruling.

“Public policy cannot extend to condone concealment or intentional misrepresentation which misleads prospective adoptive parents about the unusual calamity they are assuming,” he wrote.

”. . . We cannot countenance conduct which would allow persons who desire entrance into the emotional realm of parenting to be unprotected from schemes or tactics designed to discharge societal burdens onto the unsuspecting or unwary.

“As trustees of the child’s destiny the agency was obligated to act with morals greater than those found in a purveyor’s common marketplace.”