Hope for Change After Foster Placement Blunders

Negligence

Scott R. Montogomery, Abbey, Weitzenberg, Warren & Emery PC and Johann A. Hall, The Law Office of Johann Hall

The facts were horrific: three children under 10 had been sexually assaulted for weeks by their foster father after they'd been newly housed with him and his wife by a Sonoma County placement contractor, Alternative Family Services Inc.

Also shocking -- when claims against the contractor got to the courtroom -- was the reluctance of a key Alternative Family Services witness, an intake coordinator, to confirm that her job was to ensure the foster home was safe.

Lead plaintiffs' counsel Scott R. Montgomery of Abbey, Weitzenberg, Warren & Emery PC and sole practitioner Johann A. Hall, both of Santa Rosa, sued on behalf of the children, alleging that Alternative Family Services was negligent and violated state law during the approval process. The blunders led to placing the children with a sexual abuser.

The jury agreed, awarding the children $24.8 million and assigning Alternative Family Services 60% of the responsibility for the harm caused. The foster father, Mark Zapata Martinez, is now in prison for the abuse. C.F. et al. v. Alternative Family Services Inc. et al., SCV264540 (Sonoma Co. Super. Ct., filed May 31, 2019).

The outcome was a Daily Journal Top Verdict for 2023.

Montgomery showed jurors a video excerpt of the placement agency intake coordinator's deposition. He asked whether her screening job embodied the dual meaning of the agency acronym for Structured Analysis Family Evaluation, or SAFE, in approving foster families for vulnerable kids. Her stumbling, evasive, "I don't know," and other unresponsive answers, played early in the trial, set the tone for the prosecution,

"I heard multiple groans from the jury and saw the shaking of heads," Montgomery said. Added Hall, "She had a hard time answering, and there were sighs, an audible groan and jurors shifting in their seats. It seemed like a good sign. She was a powerful early witness for us."

The plaintiffs' team, including Abbey Weitzenberg lawyers Natasha E. Berg and Kaitlyn D. Wright, demonstrated the agency's negligence by showing that an intake questionnaire submitted by the foster parents that screened for potential warning signs like pornography or domestic violence in the home was filed away with many items unanswered.

"A lot of inconsistencies and red flags slipped through the agency's process," Montgomery said.

Defense lawyer Daniel R. Friedenthal of Fridenthal, Heffernan & Brown LLP, a civil litigation firm headquartered in Pasadena, argued that it followed all required vetting procedures. He asserted in court papers that the company visited the home 11 times and found no evidence of sexual abuse. (One of the victims eventually reported the abuse to his biological father.) The defendant has posted a bond and filed a notice of appeal.

Montgomery's closing argument featured an extensive review of the evidence in a 180-slide PowerPoint presentation. "I think we out-prepared [the defense], outworked them," he said.

The jury deliberated for a day and a half. "I hope the agency will be making some significant changes," Hall said. Added Montgomery: "It was a pinnacle moment when the verdict came in. I started crying as I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. I was so relieved that I was able to help these kids."

--John Roemer