New York City
Elisa W. v. The City Of New York
Plaintiffs: 19 foster children, aged 3 through 16, representing the class of nearly 8,000 New York City foster children
Public Advocate: Letitia James
Read the original complaint here (filed July 8, 2015).
Read the Southern District of New York’s decision granting class action status to all NYC foster children here and the press release here (August 2024).
about the NYC foster care system
New York City’s foster children are more likely to be harmed while in foster care than children almost anywhere else in the country.
Each year, approximately 1,000 New York City children leave the foster care system without a permanent family or connection to an adult upon whom they can depend. Many of them wind up homeless.
In New York City, children in foster care spend twice as much time in state custody as children in the rest of New York State and over double the amount of time in state custody as children in the rest of the nation.
It takes longer to return New York City children in foster care to their parents than in the rest of New York State and the rest of the nation. Federal data shows that New York City performs worse on this measure than all but five other states and territories.
It takes longer for a foster child to be adopted in New York City than anywhere else in the country. New York City has performed worse on this measure than every state since at least 2007.
allegations
New York State fails to exercise sufficient oversight over New York City’s child welfare system and to take necessary steps to ensure that the city complies with federal law. In addition, NYC fails to monitor private agencies with which it contracts for foster care services. The result of these failures is that the NYC foster care system devastates and permanently damages the children in its care.
advocacy goals
On behalf of a class of nearly 8,000 children, we ask that the Court enforce these children’s constitutional, federal, and state law rights to be safe while in state custody and to grow up in a permanent family.
progress
After reviewing more than a million pages of documents from city and state officials, and taking 24 depositions of city, state, and private agency officials, we finally completed a motion to have the case certified as a class action. The motion for class certification was denied by the district court in a brief decision in 2022, and this case is on appeal to the Second Circuit. Our brief has been joined by amicus groups of legal scholars and New York-based advocacy groups that had previously opposed us.
In September 2023, Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the 2022 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. This decision is a huge win for children in the New York City foster care system. The case is being sent back to the district court for a reconsideration of the denial of class action status.
In August 2024, the Southern District of New York ruled that the 19 children in a long-standing lawsuit could proceed as a class representing all of the children in the New York City foster care system. This is a huge win and means the plaintiffs can move ahead to further demonstrate the failures of ACS and the state to the court.
meet our plaintiffs
(All names below are pseudonyms)
elisa
Elisa was a 17-year-old girl at the time of the complaint, who grew up in more foster placements than she can remember. Over time, she has been sexually abused, beaten, denied food, and psychologically abused. Elisa was forced to take powerful psychotropic medications to keep her calm in foster care. These drugs left her barely able to string a sentence together. Elisa still articulates a desire to go to college and remembers being a good student when she was younger, but she fears those dreams will never come true. In her own words, “no one ever asks me what I want.”
thierry
Thierry was a three-year-old boy when the complaint was filed, who had been separated from his mother for most of his life. Even though his mother reported and expelled her abuser husband, Thierry had neither been sent home from foster care, nor had a new permanent home been found for him. At the end of visits he had with his mother, Thierry would cry uncontrollably. The child’s therapist had told his mother that he had to “get used to it” because this would be “his life now.”
ayanna
Ayanna was two and a half years old at the time of filing, and had been in foster care since birth. She endured mandatory visits with her biological mother who severely abused two other children. (One of those children died at the hands of her mother’s boyfriend.) Ayanna did not want to see her biological mother. She remained without a permanent home and a family to call her own, despite her foster parent’s sincere desire to adopt her.