Has anyone ever tried to sue an adoption agency?

Question

I'm just curious if anyone has ever attempted suing an adoption agency for coercion or falsifying information.

I guess this question is more for the adult adoptees who have researched these types of things far more than I ever have. I was just sitting here wondering why an adoptee or birth mom couldn't sue an adoption agency if the info provided was not true or if a breach of contract occurred.

I do realize that no amount of money would change things, but would it set a precedent for adoption agencies to be held more accountable?

Answer 1

Yes My son is in the middle of it right now. The social worker got 2 years probation suspension and more hours for ethic's classes. The DPS who reglate the adoption agency also was found in violations.  He is also sueing him the social worker and the couple who has the child for help hidding the child for  over a year.  What is needed to be done is adoption reform. And if more people start sueing these wrongful adoption agencys and the social worker and all involved then maybe things will change. For all of you it's not about money at any point before the child got over a year the adoption agency could have gave the baby back and their would have not been a law suit but with the cost of fighting these cases and the heartach of it all is unbearable.

   Like I said no money is worth what my son has had to indure from the agency, social worker and couple. And most of all the birth of his child. The 1st smile, 1st laugh, 1st time he turned over,1st hoilday,1st tooth, 1st birthday, 1st time he walked. 1st words you get what I'm saying.

Answer 2

Doing a google search, I found several cases of fathers suing when the children are adopted without their consent:

http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/nw_local/art...

http://www.sptimes.com/News/012301/Tampa...

I haven't gone through them all, but I have yet to see any with a birth mother or adopted child as the plaintiff.

Edit - Actually, there are some with adult adoptees as plantiffs, but they are concerned with sealed records.

Answer 3

i have never heard of any lawsuits, but mscrawdad may be on to the key to all this.

i mean holy cow! she bullied them the way she had been bullied and WON! she didnt just 'meet them at the flagpole after school' she ripped down the pole and came at the school swinging, i have a whole new respect for her and some hope for what others can do to get help.

cyber high five to her for stepping up and making some noise

Answer 4

I know of several going on right now.  Right now a majority of the parents are just fighting to get their children back.  I know there is a case in Canada right now.  I also know that a father here in Texas is getting ready to sue the agency and the church that they are associated with.  He will win because they falsified his relinquishment.  He signed up on the putative father registry.  He made it very clear to the agency that he wanted to raise his son but the agency bypassed him by saying they didn't know how to contact him.  The agency was reported as not following through in contacting him to CPS.  Its all there for the world to see on the Texas DFPS website.  This young man has been fighting for two years now.  The agency was slapped with a $100,000 fine but they are they are still fighting him on returning his child.

The agencies know the laws better than we adoptees, adoptive parents and natural parents.  They use these laws to circumvent the rights of all of us.  We as group need to hold them more accountable.  One father was quoted as saying that it is easier to place a child for adoption than it is to place a dog or cat for adoption.

Answer 5

Well, sealed records are a great way to try to hide unscrupulous activities on the part of the agencies.  Georgia Tann could tell us all about that if she were alive.  She was a big push behind sealing records in the first place, for such reasons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Tan...

I don't know if anyone had attempted to sue over false information, but certainly there would be reason to do so.  Place of birth, date of birth and other pertinent information are sometimes altered on amended birth certificates.

Answer 6

I have heard that a large adoption agency in the US is currently getting their butts sued off for violating father's rights.  I hope they are forced out of business.

For exploited people to win law-suits against big businesses, class-action suits are the best way to win.

Answer 7

My first mom says she wants to sue and honestly, I think she might have a case.  The thing is, I don't want to because the agency no longer handles adoptions and has not since the early eighties.  They currently work as a charity supporting things like Big Brother/Big Sister Programs, Boys and Girls Clubs and shelters for abused children.  They do good work NOW.  I don't want to hurt that.

The truth is, the people who did these underhanded things no longer work for the organization and it has changed for the better.

AND the current administration gave me my info even though it was proof of coercion.  At least they followed the law and gave me my truth.  

I just wouldn't feel right.

Also, according to my friend who is a lawyer, many adoption agencies are protected by the state, so it is tricky to sue.

I probably could but I'm not going to.  It wouldn't change what happened.

Now if the agency was still doing adoptions, I would probably think about it.

Answer 8

i just read this article (which i think is c**p -- she doesn't have solid facts other than "someone" and it's been 42 years . .  .) but thought i'd pass it along anyone

ETA:::::::  heather -- we do see it differently; i see it as slamming the AP without any real proof, basically acting like a spoiled brat.  but please, let's not get nasty because i do think this is going to be anteresting case to follow.

i can also see how you would want to hear more of her story.  It's not much but here's another article -- the daughter hasn't said much though.    I think this is worth watching and while i know we're going to disagree on this, it is very interesting.  I think it's going to lead to a lot of debate on and off the board and will bring adoption to the office water cooler.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/20...

ETA (Again)::::: Another thought -- if it is/was a state agency, they're probably protected under "Sovereign Immunity"  which protects states and municipalities from going bankrupt due to lawsuits.  There are some reasons that you can go over and above the immunity cap but i'm not sure what they are.

i also agree with the other poster who stated that things have changed and most of the people who allegedly did something wrong are no longer with the agencies.  It's almost like suing columbus for civil rights violations when in fact, that's just the way it was back then, right or wrong.

ETA:::: Carol Sandusky tried to sue but the AG wouldn't do it due to soverign immunity -- see #17

http://waysandmeans.house.gov/legacy/hum...

Answer 9

http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Edmonton...

'Lawsuit of lies'

Mother faces half-million-dollar lawsuit filed by her adopted daughter

Donna Morrison epitomizes the adage that a mother’s love knows no bounds.

Facing a half-million-dollar “lawsuit of lies” from her adopted daughter, she refuses to give up hope their relationship can have a happy ending.

Morrison, 71, choked back tears Friday, while trying to explain a lawsuit from Denice Poland, 44.

Morrison adopted Poland in 1965 and spent her younger years raising her.

According to a statement of claim, Poland is suing Morrison, two doctors and the Royal Alexandra Hospital for $500,000 each, claiming she was fraudulently adopted, never told of her biological parents, and that she was the victim of substandard living conditions, abuse and neglect.

Morrison, who’s three biological sons are now successful professionals, is beside herself with worry and pain.

A widow on a fixed income, she says Poland and her lawyers are harassing her with threatening phone calls.

“I’ll never regret adopting her. As a mother, you always love your children unconditionally … but she’s troubled. This just hurts so much,” Morrison said, sobbing. “I don’t know who or what put any of these ideas in her head.”

Morrison is looking for a lawyer to help her file a statement of defence to refute each of Poland’s claims.

“She thinks we somehow duped her biological parents and stole her from the hospital. But as an adoptive and foster parent, we were never allowed to even know who her parents were. Until I got this lawsuit served on me last month, I still never knew their last name.

“She claims she didn’t know she was adopted until 2006, but we gave her the adoption papers when she was about 12. When she was 18, I agreed to help support her in her search for her biological parents.

“And her claims about substandard living? We raised her in a fully furnished show home that we bought in the 1960s.”

Poland is also claiming for lost past and future income due to lack of education and employment, but Morrison and her sons are drafting affidavits that Poland willingly dropped out of high school and chose never to return.

“She moved out of home and in with her first boyfriend at age 16. But we kept up a great mother-daughter relationship over the years. I was excited to be a grandmother for the first time when she had her first baby.”

Morrison hopes a judge will “see the lawsuit as the half-brained get-rich-quick scheme it really is,” but won’t give up hope on her daughter.

“It’s ridiculous and hurtful accusations, after all I’ve done for her as her mother. I want her to explain this and maybe we can get past it.”

Statements of claim have not been proven in court.

[e-mail]

Answer 10

I reckon the Moms of the baby scoop era would have a pretty compelling case - The book "The Girls Who Went Away" is a good illustration of why

The article Alisa A cited is interesting reading.  It's a shame it's so one-sided though - you can't make a fair judgement about someone without hearing their side of the story . . .

ETA  after looking into this reported case further it appears that the Adoptee and her lawyer are not talking to the press.  It appears that this was a 'dead baby scam' perpetrated by the doctor lawyer and paps.   The Adoptee was declared a stillbirth and allegedly stolen for adoption

There is definitely more to this than meets the eye, don't believe everything you read

Answer 11

It's something I would love to do, but the adoption agency is holding my files hostage so there's really no way to "prove" any wrongdoing on their part.  I doubt there's any way they'd ever release my files to me, my mother, or anyone.

Sealed records...gotta love 'em.

Answer 12

Interestingly, I'm an adoptive parent and my adoptions worker told me that it happens all the time by all three involved parties, but rarely successfully.  They are pretty careful not to put promises on paper, but ask the others involved in the process to put promises on paper.

When my adopted child developed early onset schizophrenia at 14 years old and needed to be placed in a residential treatment school, it nearly destroyed us financially.  It took us eight years to pay off six months of tuition, medical care, and support.  We called adoptions to ask if there were some programs out there that could help us financially.  They were so rude and horrible to us that I cried for a week.  We talked to the school district, local social services and mental health departments with no luck at all.  We lived in CA where a recent bill had been passed to not have any residential treatment facilities (locked facilities) in the state or pay for children to be sent out of state due to some recent deaths of children in such facilities.  So, I stopped crying and got mad - really really mad.  I knew how many families were out there dealing with these same issues whether the child was adopted or not.  We took out loans and placed her into a facility in Provo, Utah at $10,000/mth.  And I started a very small, yet successful one woman war and won.

I got every phone and fax number, email address, and physical address for every single political person in the state of CA and in the Federal Government.  I wrote one letter demanding action on their part to get us the funding we needed to educate our mentally ill child.  Then I spent the next two weeks with my fax machine programmed to send the same letter out to every phone number on the list non-stop 24/7.  I burned out two fax machines.  I mailed 10 copies of the letter to each person's address, one a day.  I had a friend who is a computer genius set up my email on a loop and emailed the same letter out to all of the addresses non-stop 24/7.  I filled every single phone message mail box (literally, I would continue to call until it said it was full) with the same message every single day.  And if I got a real person on the phone I would demand to speak to whoever it was I was calling, leave a message and call right back.  Finally, peons began to return my calls asking what I wanted and how my Congressperson could help.  I think I actually spoke to about 14 Congresspersons in person before it was all over with.  But, it was actually the CA Governor's Aide that resolved the issue.  (I never did get to speak directly with the Governor.  But the Aide was acting on his behalf.)  He called a meeting between Adoptions, Social Services, Mental Health Services, School District, and my husband and I, and told them not to come out of the room until it was fixed.  The three different Adoptions workers that had been so rude to us were suspended for a month without pay.  The County that we adopted from picked up 1/3 of the cost, our Mental Health Department picked up 1/3 of the cost, and our School District picked up 1/3 of the cost.  There was no process by which they could reimburse us the well over $60,000 we had already paid out, but they picked up the tuition and medical care costs from that day on.  We only paid for her personal items, clothes, hygiene, spending money, and of course, travel for us to visit her and for her to visit us, etc.  Once we got it all settled, Social Services begged us to remand her to the state and disrupt the adoption.  Never.  Never.  Never.  They said it would be better for our family to move on.  Right.  It would have been so much cheaper for them to move her back to CA and stick her in a state mental facility for life.  They knew it and we knew it.  There comes a time when you have to let go of your children.  But the reason shouldn't be expediency and to unload yourself of a burden!  Once she became an adult we no longer controlled what happens to her, but she always has a home to come to and people that love her.  That's supposed to be what adopting a special needs child is all about, right?

So suing them is rarely successful, but camping out on the doorstep of the person that holds the money strings does work.  And anyway, I can't think of a reason to sue in our situation.  We just needed help and would have done the exact same had it been one of our birth children we were seeking care for.

For those people who were lied to can prove it in writing, I say go for it.  Sue them into bankruptcy.  It might just save someone else from suffering the same injustices.  Good luck.

Answer 13

No, I haven't heard anything.  And I wonder why that is considering that coercion and fraudulent practices have been pervasive for decades.  Bparents shamed into silence?  Aparents don't think there was anything wrong?  I think the adoptees will have to make this one happen.  

I can't wait to hear about the suit the twins in England that got married and afterward discovered they were twins are going to file!  Talk about mental anguish!