Reported / Citable
Background
Three young children — ages two, five, and six — were placed in a foster home approved and supervised by Alternative Family Services, a foster family agency (FFA). Within approximately two months, the foster father sexually abused at least two of the children and was ultimately arrested and convicted. The children sued the FFA, and a jury awarded $24.7 million in damages, allocating 60 percent of fault to the FFA, 35 percent to the foster father, and 5 percent to the foster mother.
The central dispute on appeal was the scope of the FFA’s duty of care. The FFA argued that under the Rowland factors, it should have no liability absent actual knowledge of the foster father’s specific risk of sexual abuse. The plaintiffs argued for a broad, unlimited duty to protect. The trial court had instructed the jury on an unrestricted duty of care — essentially that the FFA had a duty to protect the children, full stop.
The Court’s Holding
The First District charted a middle course. Applying the Rowland factors — which California courts use to determine whether to limit the general duty of care — the court held that an FFA has a duty to protect foster children from abuse it knew or should have known about. This “knew or should have known” standard is broader than the FFA’s proposed “actual knowledge” standard (which would have required evidence the agency had specific notice of the foster father’s dangerousness) but narrower than the trial court’s instruction, which imposed no knowledge limitation at all.
The court found that the trial court’s jury instruction was erroneous because it permitted the jury to impose liability without any showing that the FFA knew or should have known of the risk. However, the court affirmed the verdict because the error was harmless — the evidence of the FFA’s negligent screening and supervision was so strong that there was no reasonable probability the jury would have reached a different result under the correct standard.
The court also upheld the jury’s comparative fault allocation, rejecting the FFA’s argument that a negligent tortfeasor can never be assigned more fault than an intentional one. The court noted that California law does not impose such a rule and that the jury’s allocation reflected the evidence about the FFA’s extensive failings.
Key Takeaways
- Foster family agencies owe a duty to protect foster children from abuse the agency knew or should have known about — a standard that requires reasonable diligence in screening and supervision but does not impose strict liability.
- The “should have known” component means that FFAs must maintain adequate screening, training, and supervision practices; willful blindness or negligent failure to detect warning signs will satisfy the duty element.
- An FFA can be assigned a greater share of comparative fault than the person who actually perpetrated the abuse, where the evidence shows the agency’s failures were extensive and directly enabled the harm.
- This is a partially published opinion — the published portions establish the duty-of-care framework and comparative fault principles, providing statewide guidance for foster care negligence cases.
Why It Matters
This decision establishes an important middle-ground standard for FFA liability that will shape foster care litigation across California. By adopting a “knew or should have known” standard, the court balanced two competing concerns: protecting highly vulnerable children who depend entirely on the foster care system, and avoiding imposing unlimited liability that could deter organizations from participating in foster care at all.
For FFAs and their insurers, the practical message is clear — invest in robust screening and ongoing supervision. The court’s refusal to require “actual knowledge” means that an FFA cannot shield itself by simply avoiding inquiries into warning signs. For plaintiffs’ attorneys, the decision confirms that negligent placement and supervision claims are viable even without a smoking-gun email showing the agency knew about a specific risk of abuse. The $24.7 million verdict — and the 60/35/5 fault allocation — also signals that juries may hold agencies primarily responsible when their systemic failures enable abuse.