County ordered to give up files

A California-based nonprofit group suing to reform the Clark County child welfare system won a long-fought battle in federal court Thursday when a judge ordered the county to hand over hundreds of files detailing investigations of abuse against foster children.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Johnston's order requires the county by Oct. 3 to provide copies of roughly 1,100 institutional abuse reports to the National Center for Youth Law in Oakland, Calif.

The reports detail allegations of physical, sexual and other types of abuse and neglect involving children in foster care.

The judge also ordered the county to pay the center's legal costs for its fight to get the files because the county did not produce them earlier.

Bill Grimm, the center's senior attorney, said the files are critical to proving that the county's Department of Family Services is failing in its mission to protect children under its care.

"If these files didn't show any damning information, we wouldn't be battling. They would have turned them over," Grimm said.

The lawsuit, filed in August 2006, alleges that the Department of Family Services places abused and neglected children in unsafe homes and crowded, understaffed facilities such as Child Haven; that it doesn't do proper investigations into allegations of abuse and neglect and, therefore, pulls children out of homes too often; that it fails to properly monitor foster parents and foster homes.

Other defendants include county commissioners and the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services.

"It is premature to respond until we have an opportunity to review the court minutes and motions," county spokesman Erik Pappa said in a written statement.

Lawyers for the county estimated in court documents that the file request would reach about 235,000 pages and would take two years to complete.

Christine Skorupski, spokeswoman for the Department of Family Services, said the agency would make its "best effort" to comply with the court's order.

Lawyers for the National Center for Youth Law have been waiting for the records since March, when Johnston first ordered the county to turn over the records, Grimm said.

County lawyers appealed that decision to U.S. District Court Robert Jones, who upheld the initial order.

"And still they refused to produce these documents, and this is after two court orders," Grimm said.

Contact reporter Brian Haynes at bhaynes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0281.