13-year Old Boy Was Physically And Emotionally Abused In A Group Home For Troubled Boys

DISCLAIMER: The results are specific to the facts and legal circumstances of each of the clients’ cases and should not be used to form an expectation that the same results could be obtained for other clients in similar matters without reference to the specific factual and legal circumstances of each client’s case.

Our client was a 13-year old child who was having some emotional and behavioral problems, and was a result, was having a difficult time getting along with his single mother.

Not knowing where else to turn, our client’s mother found a Christian-based group home for troubled boys.  The marketing materials produced by the group home touted their God-centered approach to “reaching” boys with the most serious emotional and psychological problems.  The leaders of the group home were well-aware that our client had been the victim of emotional and sexual abuse as a very young child – before being adopted by his current mother.

In addition to being emotionally vulnerable, our teenage client was also small for his age, and tended to be quiet and keep to himself.

No Child Should Be Tortured

Despite the group home’s marketing literature, what our young client faced at this Central Florida group home was nothing less than torture.

Over the course of several months, our client was subjected to being tossed into and trapped in a half-full abandoned septic tank, and being beaten with a broomstick each time he tried to climb out.  Some older, larger boys at the home forced our client’s pants down and made him sit with his bare buttocks on a red ant pile.  Our client suffered literally hundreds of red any bites.  In a separate event, one of the older boys in the program rammed our client’s foot so hard into one of the facility’s walls that it literally broke most of the bones in his foot.  This was in addition to simply being picked-on on a regular basis.

Excessive Punishment Is Child Abuse

Worst of all, one of the counselors/workers employed by the group home regularly forced our client to wrestle the older, stronger boys as a form of punishment.  One of the older boys that our young client was made to wrestle was so strong and so violent that he literally broke our client’s shoulder.  The group home counselor was eventually charged with aggravated battery on a minor and served jail time.

Once our client’s mother found out about the extent of the abuse and hired us, we were able to quickly resolve our client’s claim with the group home for its liability policy limits of $300,000.00.

$300,000