A federal jury has awarded $534,000 in damages to a man who was sexually abused as a child while in the custody of the South Carolina Department of Social Services, the plaintiff’s attorney reports.
Robert Butcher of The Camden Law Firm in Camden said that a jury in U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina awarded the money in March as compensation for injuries the man sustained between the ages of 10 and 13 while living at the Boys Home of the South group home in Anderson County.
The jury found that DSS was grossly negligent and that Ursula Best, a DSS supervisor, and Cassandra Daniels, the caseworker assigned to his case, were deliberately indifferent to “W.S.’s” constitutional rights in failing to rescue him from repeated incidents of sexual abuse while living at the group home. As a result, DSS must pay $400,000, Best must pay $74,000, and Daniels must pay $60,000 in compensatory and punitive damages.
W.S. had previously settled for an undisclosed amount with Boys Home of the South.
“The evidence was overwhelming,” Butcher said, explaining that understaffing and poor supervision led to W.S. being sexually assaulted on multiple occasions by other children at the group home. Butcher said that several of the incidents involved the same attacker, and even after investigations were conducted, DSS found that no negligent supervision occurred.
This is the first time that such a claim has gone to trial in South Carolina since the immunity standard for DSS employees was qualified by a 2010 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that allowed foster children to make federal claims against DSS employees, Butcher said.
Butcher also noted the relatively novel issue of consent in a child-on-child sexual abuse case. He said that because his client was between the ages of seven and 14 at the time of the abuse, his side had to show that W.S. was incapable of consenting at the time of the incidents.
Ultimately, Butcher said this case was just one instance of a much bigger trend of DSS neglect leading to sexual abuse. He said that he currently is working on 10 other similar cases of sexual abuse that occurred under DSS supervision.
“If DSS were to fix all of their problems today, we’d still have cases for the next 25 years,” he said.
Andrew Lindemann of Lindemann Davis and Hughes in Columbia and James Logan Jr. and Michael Smith of Logan Jolly and Smith in Anderson represented the defendants. Lindemann could not be reached for comment before press time.
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VERDICT REPORT — CIVIL RIGHTS
Amount: $534,000
Injuries alleged: Repeated incidents of sexual abuse
Case name: W.S. v. South Carolina Department of Social Services, et al.
Court: U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina
Case No.: 8:16-cv-01032
Judge: Donald Coggins Jr.
Date of verdict: March 27, 2019
Most helpful experts: Susan O’Toole (former division director of the South Carolina Department of Social Services)
Attorneys for plaintiff: Robert Butcher of Camden Law Firm in Camden and Thomas Hite Jr., Thomas Hite III, and Heather Stone of Hite and Stone in Abbeville
Attorneys for defendant: Andrew Lindemann of Lindemann Davis and Hughes in Columbia and James Logan Jr. and Michael Smith of Logan Jolly and Smith in Anderson