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County supervisors quietly paid out over $28 million this month to the family of an infant who was injured in a home social services signed off on despite a convicted domestic abuser living there, according to legal records.
The county admitted no faults in their settlement, ending the case that was first filed back in 2021 after a four-month old infant was admitted to the hospital with a brain injury and retinal hemorrhaging.
County spokesperson Molly Nichelson declined to comment on the settlement.
“What we proved is that baby should never ever have been placed in that environment,” said Bill Shapiro, one of the infant’s lawyers. “I don’t think the people that were involved did it willfully, but everything fell through the cracks.”
The infant was taken by social services at less than two months old after her mother was arrested following a 911 call to her family’s apartment in Anaheim, with both her and two of her siblings ultimately moved to live with her paternal grandmother in Rancho Cucamonga.
The infant’s lawyers claim she and her two siblings stayed in a two bedroom apartment owned by her grandmother along with seven other people that was signed off on by county employees.
The only man living in the apartment had a criminal history with multiple domestic violence convictions for battery, according to the lawsuit.
Despite those convictions, county social services staff still greenlit all three kids moving to stay at the apartment in September and did not note the man’s criminal history or the fact there were now ten people living in an apartment less than 1,000 square feet.
Just over a month later, the infant’s grandmother called 9-1-1, saying she’d found her struggling to breathe in the bassinet.
Doctors at the hospital noted that the infant hadn’t been able to get enough oxygen, and said that her injuries were “suspicious for non accidental trauma,” according to the lawsuit.
Shapiro said she is wheelchair bound as a result of her injuries.
“She has no voluntary use of her limbs. She cannot communicate other than to smile. She knows when people talk to her, she can make eye contact,” Shapiro said. “Suffice to say, it’s catastrophic.”
It remains unclear who was responsible for the injuries the infant received at the apartment, but social services asked a judge to have her removed on New Years Eve from the same place they’d signed off on according to the lawsuit.
The infant’s mother filed multiple complaints with county staff before the incident according to the lawsuit, saying the child was not being watched properly and that she’d seen her sleeping face down on a video call.
Those calls went ignored according to the lawsuit, including one just days before paramedics showed up at the apartment when the infant was found unresponsive in her bassinet.
Shapiro said he hopes the incident prompts changes at the county’s social services department.
“The county has to take care of them,” Shapiro said. “No one else is going to take care of them.”
Doug Morino, a spokesperson for the county’s Social Services Agency, would not state what, if any, reforms were made after what happened in a statement to Voice of OC.
“Protecting Orange County’s most vulnerable is our highest priority,” Morino wrote. “We consistently and routinely review, analyze and refine the policies and procedures for all our programs to best ensure the safety and wellbeing of the nearly 1 million residents we serve.”
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative.
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