On August 30, 2000, a child who had been retained in custody for two and a half years under a lapsed custody order and his mother filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs, represented by Children's Rights, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the S.D.N.Y., and private counsel, sued the New York City Administration for Children's Services (ACS) and the Seamen's Society for Children and Families for monetary damages. The plaintiffs claimed that ACS had a practice of knowingly holding thousands of New York City children in their custody without legal basis under similarly lapsed custody orders.

Despite the child's mother’s repeated requests to have him returned to her as she had met all their requirements, and ACS’s knowledge that they had no legal basis for retaining her son in custody, ACS repeatedly refused to release him back home. During this time the child was physically abused and denied needed mental health services in his Seamen’s Society for Children and Families foster home.

In August 2001, a settlement agreement was reached in which the plaintiffs were awarded a total of $260,000. ACS was also required to release quarterly data regarding the remaining number of lapsed placements. As a result of the lawsuit, ACS revised its practices to address holding children under lapsed placement orders.

Katrina Fetsch - 03/24/2016


compress summary