Sexual abuse in foster care

Legal accuracy check

Chris Schroeder, Esq.

Florida Bar #520381 · D.C. Bar

First published October 5, 2026 · Last checked October 5, 2026

How pages are checked

How claims about foster care work

When a child is removed from home, legal custody passes to the government, which decides where and with whom the child lives. Abuse in a foster home, group home or shelter can therefore lead to claims against the agencies that made and oversaw the placement. This page covers state and county child welfare systems and the private agencies they contract with. Every institution type we cover is listed on the institutions hub.

Negligence: placement and supervision

The core claim is negligence under state law. It asks whether the agency took reasonable care in licensing the home, checking the people in it, placing the child there, and visiting and supervising the placement, and whether it acted on warning signs. These are the same questions courts ask of negligent hiring, supervision and retention by any employer, applied to the choice of a caregiver.

For a government defendant there is an extra hurdle in some states. New York normally requires a person suing a city or county over a governmental function to show a “special duty” owed to them in particular. In Weisbrod-Moore v. Cayuga County, decided February 18, 2025, the New York Court of Appeals held, over a two-judge dissent, that a county owes a duty to a foster child in its legal custody “to guard the child from ‘foreseeable risks of harm’ arising from the child’s placement with the municipality’s choice of foster parent.” The court said this “merely requires that municipalities, in making decisions about the child’s placement, make those decisions with reasonable care.” It is not strict liability. The County had argued that it was immune because foster care is a governmental function; the court left that defense, which the County must prove, for later in the case. The ruling reinstated a Child Victims Act claim. It did not decide whether the abuse the plaintiff alleges happened.

Section 1983 and the special-relationship doctrine

The federal civil rights statute, 42 U.S.C. 1983, allows a suit against anyone who, acting under state authority, causes the deprivation of a constitutional right. The Constitution does not usually require the government to protect people from private harm. In DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189 (February 22, 1989), the Supreme Court held that a county had no constitutional duty to protect a boy who was beaten while in his father’s custody. The Court explained that the duty arises “when the State takes a person into its custody and holds him there against his will.”

That reasoning is the source of what is often called the special-relationship doctrine. In footnote 9 of DeShaney, the Court wrote that if the State had “removed Joshua from free society and placed him in a foster home operated by its agents, we might have a situation sufficiently analogous to incarceration or institutionalization to give rise to an affirmative duty to protect,” and noted that several federal courts of appeals, including the Second Circuit in 1981 and the Eleventh Circuit in 1987, had held states liable on that basis for failing to protect foster children. The Court said it expressed “no view on the validity of this analogy.” How a particular federal circuit applies the doctrine today is a question for a lawyer in that circuit.

Two Supreme Court rules shape who can be sued under Section 1983. “Neither a State nor its officials acting in their official capacities are ‘persons’ under § 1983” (Will v. Michigan Department of State Police, June 15, 1989). A county or city can be sued, but under Monell v. Department of Social Services (June 6, 1978) it “cannot be held liable under § 1983 on a respondeat superior theory”: the claim must show that its own policy or custom caused the harm.

Who can be held responsible

The county or state agency. Depending on the state, foster care is run by a state department or by county departments of social services or children and family services. The agency that held legal custody, chose the placement and was responsible for visits is the usual institutional defendant. Whether it can be sued for damages, and in which court, depends on the state’s tort claims law. Because of the Will decision above, a federal damages claim names a county body or individual officials, such as caseworkers or supervisors, rather than the State itself.

Private foster care agencies. Many states and counties contract with nonprofit agencies to recruit, license and supervise foster homes. Those agencies can be sued for negligence like any private organization. In New York, roughly 800 lawsuits had been filed against local child welfare agencies under the 2019 Child Victims Act, according to The Imprint (May 21, 2024). Whether a private agency acts under state authority for Section 1983 purposes is a separate question that courts decide case by case.

The abuser. A foster parent, another adult in the home, a group home worker or an older child can be the person who caused the harm. The adult who committed the abuse can be sued directly, and a criminal case against that person is separate from the civil claim; see civil and criminal cases.

Children in care are also placed in group homes, shelters and treatment programs, where the operator is another possible defendant. Our pages on group homes, residential treatment and juvenile detention cover those settings. Our guides to child sexual abuse, grooming and sex trafficking describe patterns that appear in foster care records. Survivors can often sue under initials; our guide to filing anonymously explains how.

Deadline issues for foster care claims

Notice of claim. A claim against a public agency often has to be presented in writing to that agency first, and the deadline can be months rather than years. In California, a personal-injury claim against a public entity must be presented “not later than six months after the accrual of the cause of action” (Gov. Code 911.2). In New York, a notice of claim against a city, county or other public corporation is due within 90 days (General Municipal Law 50-e).

Both states exempt childhood sexual abuse. California’s AB 218 (Stats. 2019, ch. 861, effective January 1, 2020) added childhood sexual assault claims under Code of Civil Procedure 340.1 to the claims that need not be presented (Gov. Code 905(m)). New York’s notice statute does not apply to claims for injury from a sexual offense against a child under 18 (General Municipal Law 50-e(8)(b)). Other claims against the same agency still run on the short clock.

Time limits and revival. California has no time limit for childhood sexual assault that occurred on or after January 1, 2024; older abuse follows the law as it read on December 31, 2023, which allowed claims until age 40 or five years from discovery (Code Civ. Proc. 340.1). The AB 218 revival window closed on December 31, 2022. New York’s Child Victims Act window under CPLR 214-g closed on August 14, 2021; childhood claims can now be brought until age 55. Maryland has had no time limit for childhood sexual abuse claims since October 1, 2023, and a 2025 amendment, 2025 Md. Laws ch. 104, set separate damages caps for State and local government defendants that depend on the filing date. Our Maryland Child Victims Act page covers that law.

Federal claims. Section 1983 has no deadline of its own; under Wilson v. Garcia (1985) it borrows the state’s personal-injury period. Whether a state revival law also reopens a federal claim is a separate question. The general rules by state are on our statute of limitations reference.

Records. Los Angeles County said on October 17, 2025 that its ability to assess claims dating “from 1959 to 2023” was “hampered by a lack of records.” Old claims are still brought; our guide how to file a claim walks through what a lawsuit involves.

Active litigation involving foster care

Each line below is an allegation unless it says a court has ruled. Status is as of the date given.

Los Angeles County

On April 29, 2025, the Board of Supervisors approved $4 billion, plus administrative costs, to resolve approximately 6,800 claims under AB 218. The Board’s record describes them as “allegations of childhood sexual abuse against the Probation Department, Department of Children and Family Services, Parks and Recreation Department, Department of Health Services, Sheriff’s Department, and Fire Department.” On October 28, 2025, the Board approved up to $828 million for approximately 414 more matters against the Probation Department and the Department of Children and Family Services. The County said in April 2025 that the majority of claims are alleged to have happened at Probation facilities and at the MacLaren Children’s Center, which closed in 2003. County Counsel recommended the October settlement “to avoid the risks and uncertainties of litigation.” On April 14, 2026, the County reported more than 6,000 further pending claims outside these settlements. The full record is on our LA County foster care page, and the juvenile hall side is on our LA County juvenile facilities page.

New York

After Weisbrod-Moore, a New York county cannot defeat a foster child’s negligence claim simply because the plaintiff did not plead a special duty. Private agencies face their own suits, and in 2024 they urged lawmakers to create a state fund to help pay them, according to The Imprint (May 21, 2024). A bill to create a $200 million fund for school districts and agencies facing these suits, S3149, was sent back to the Senate Finance Committee on January 7, 2026 and has not been enacted.

Claims about juvenile halls and youth detention centers are followed on our juvenile facilities tracker. The case tracker lists every matter we follow. An agency missing from this page is not a sign that no claim exists.

Where to go next

Parents and relatives can start with our guide for families, and reporting abuse explains how to report a child at risk now. Trauma and healing lists support that does not depend on any lawsuit. If you want a lawyer to look at your own dates, a free, confidential case review costs nothing and commits you to nothing, and you will not be asked to describe what happened in detail.

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