Scalded Girl to Receive $460,000

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed Tuesday to pay a $460,000 settlement to an 11-year-old foster child who allegedly was scalded with boiling water and tied up while in the care of an adoptive mother approved by county social workers.

Attorneys for the girl claimed that county workers gave the mother preferential treatment because she is a social worker, who remains an employee of San Bernardino County.

The adoptive mother, Grace Rich-Brown, did not return phone calls. The San Bernardino County district attorney’s office concluded in 1995 that there was insufficient evidence to file criminal charges against Rich-Brown, an official in the agency said. Rich-Brown still faces a civil trial in September to determine whether she is personally liable for the girl’s injuries.

Rich-Brown once helped to arrange adoptions for the San Bernardino County Department of Public Social Services. More recently, she has staffed the hotline that receives and assesses reports of child abuse and neglect.

Rich-Brown’s supervisors declined to discuss the case in detail. They would not say whether the social worker’s assessment of child abuse reports could be affected by the allegations against her.

*

“At a certain point, problems in the personal life cross over and become a problem in your professional life,” said Tom Moore, a regional manager with the San Bernardino County agency. “As a general policy, that is the assessment an agency has to make. But I can’t comment on this individual case.”

The girl who was the subject of the litigation, identified in the claim by only her first name and last initial, is now living in a foster home in Los Angeles, where she is expected to be adopted.

The girl is recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder from the abuse she suffered, said her attorney, Steven P. Beltran. Tuesday’s settlement will create a $300,000 annuity that will begin producing income for her when she is 18 years old. Another $125,000 of the settlement will cover the girl’s legal fees and $35,000 will repay Medi-Cal for services.

The child entered the foster care system as a 1-year-old in 1986. In 1989, she was placed in the home of Rich-Brown, who expressed an interest in adopting the girl. But in 1992, while the adoption was still pending, the girl’s feet were scalded.

*

An emergency room doctor suspected child abuse, but the toddler and Rich-Brown both said the injuries were the result of an accident, according to a summary of the case by the Los Angeles County counsel’s office. Rich-Brown’s own child welfare agency agreed the burns were accidental.

In agreeing to Tuesday’s settlement, Los Angeles County conceded a number of errors in handling the case and projected that it could lose as much as $2.4 million if the matter went to trial. Among the shortcomings cited in the Los Angeles County counsel summary: A social worker relied on others’ assessments of the burn incident, rather than investigating independently; state-mandated monthly visits to the girl were not made; Rich-Brown was described to the adoption judge as a licensed foster parent, when she was not; the girl’s case dropped through the cracks for more than a year, with no new adoptive family sought, when Rich-Brown decided to relinquish the child.

“This all is related to the preferential treatment Rich-Brown received because she was a social worker,” Beltran said. “In the initial reports when [the girl] entered the system she was described as this great, warm and loving kid and here, four years later, there is this child who is suicidal and permanently scarred. It’s pretty hard to refute the damage done to this child.”

The Los Angeles County counsel’s office did not try to rebut many of the serious charges. Said the office’s summary of the case: “We believe the evidence will show that the Department of Children and Family Services was negligent in their supervision” of the child.