LOUISIANA , April 10, 2024 - A class action lawsuit was filed today on behalf of more than 4,000 Louisiana foster children against the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services (“DCFS”), DCFS Secretary David Matlock, and Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry. The suit alleges that the state’s child welfare system, which the head of the agency claimed was in a “death spiral” and was “hemorrhaging employees" less than two months ago, is failing its most vulnerable children and desperately in need of systemic reform.

NEW YORK, September 19, 2023—In a strongly worded decision, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals today reversed and remanded a 2021 decision by the district court denying class action status to a long-running lawsuit challenging a range of practices by the New York City foster care system.

CHARLESTON, August 17, 2023- Ruling that “plaintiffs’ claims, challenging systemic deficiencies in West Virginia’s foster care system, are tailer-made for class resolution,” a federal district court in West Virginia on Thursday has certified the foster case, Jonathan R. v. Justice, as a class action, allowing it to proceed on behalf of all of the approximately 6,100 children in foster care in the state.

SOUTH BEND, August 16, 2023—A class action lawsuit was filed today by ten foster children on behalf of more than 11,000 Hoosier children, asserting that the Indiana Department of Child Services (“DCS”), DCS Director Eric Miller, and Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb (collectively, “the Defendants”) are failing to keep children safe.

LOS ANGELES, May 25, 2023 — A class action lawsuit was filed today on behalf of more than 5,800 California children against the California Department of Social Services (“CDSS”), San Bernardino County, Members of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, San Bernardino County Child & Family Services (“CFS”), California Gov. Gavin Newsom alleging that San Bernardino County’s child welfare system is irretrievably broken and in need of systemic reform.

After eleven years of federal court oversight the national child welfare experts responsible for evaluating the state’s efforts to improve Oklahoma’s child welfare system have found that the state has made sufficient “good faith efforts” to be released from a significant portion of the Settlement Agreement entered in 2012.

Charleston, WV– A federal district court judge in West Virginia today ruled in a three-year-old federal class action lawsuit that plaintiffs in the state’s beleaguered foster care system can move forward with their federal claims against that system.

The District of Columbia effectively ended more than 30 years of court oversight over its child welfare system today, when the parties appeared before Judge Thomas Hogan, and plaintiffs notified the court that they would not invoke their right to enforce the court-ordered agreement.

A federal district court in Oregon ruled today that a lawsuit filed by A Better Childhood, a national child advocacy organization, Disability Rights Oregon, and Davis Wright Tremaine on behalf of foster children in the Oregon child welfare system will proceed as a class action lawsuit.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals today issued a decision rejecting the state’s attempt to dismiss a federal class action on behalf of the children of the state that asserted a wide range of systemic failings. The lawsuit was filed in 2019.