“A King County jury [last week] awarded a Somali refugee $8.8 million, finding that negligence by state social workers contributed to a savage assault by a gang of teenagers living in a West Seattle foster home.” Attorney Jack Connelly, representing beating victim Aba Sheikh, said the state Department of Social and Health Services should have moved two delinquent teenagers from foster care to more restrictive and closely supervised custodial settings. “Assistant Attorney General Jeff Freimund said yesterday the verdict puts social workers in an untenable position — complying with laws that require foster kids be put in the least restrictive, most ‘family-like’ setting possible, while being held responsible if the children exploit their freedom and commit crimes.” DSHS officials called the ruling an “unprecedented” expansion of state liability and said if it is sustained the department “will have to institute extraordinary new constraints on children in foster care, interfering with their growth into successful citizens.” “Aba Sheikh also will be paid $300,000 by Shell Oil, because the attack occurred at a gas station franchised by the company”. (“Jury faults DSHS for attack by foster kids”, Seattle Times, Nov. 18). For another case in which attorney Connelly made the state of Washington pay dearly for imposing insufficiently custodial conditions on persons under its authority, see Sept. 13-14, 2000 (auto accident by convict serving community-supervision portion of sentence)(& letter to the editor, Dec. 6). Update Apr. 16, 2006: state’s high court overturns verdict.

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