Judge Rules Michigan DHS Workers Not Culpable in Child Death

In 2007, Oliver Braman was convicted of abusing two of his children. As he awaited sentencing, Michigan DHS still allowed him to parent 9-year-old Nicholas.

“Oliver Braman killed himself, his wife and his son Nicholas — whom Braman had drugged — in October 2007 by filling a room in their Montcalm County home with carbon monoxide.”

“Nicholas’s mother Rebecca Jasinski sued the Department of Human Services and several employees in 2010, saying they should have removed Nicholas from his father and stepmother’s care.

Her lawsuit claimed there had been complaints about Braman for nine years and pointed out that the Office of Children’s Ombudsman had found that Children’s Protective Services had not properly investigated several of the complaints against Braman and therefore failed to properly protect Braman’s children.

But a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that CPS workers were not the immediate cause of Nicholas’ death — Braman was. As a result, the court decided, the workers could not be sued.

Nicholas’s death led to a new Michigan law that established rules for how child welfare workers in different counties must communicate, among other things.”

Court: CPS not culpable in boy’s death

[Wood TV 9/4/13]

2012 Article

“A state Court of Claims judge earlier rejected a claim by the boy’s mother, Rebecca Jasinski, who said that the Department of Human Services, and its workers, were derelict in their duties to protect the boy from an abusive father who used cattle prods to discipline his older boys.

Despite prosecutors’ warnings that Elmer was in danger, and should be removed from his father’s care, protective-services workers did not believe he was in danger and did not remove him. The state Office of Children’s Ombudsman said that CPS acted with deliberate indifference to the boy’s welfare.

Attorneys for the boy’s mother filed a claim that said state workers violated his right to due process.

The Court of Claims determined that the state Constitution does not create a cause of action for damages, and dismissed claims both in this case and another: the death of Calista Springer, 16, found chained to her bed after a 2008 fire at her Centreville home.

“Plaintiffs assert that the decedents were deprived of their rights to life and liberty. Unfortunately, that is true,” an appeals panel wrote.

“However, it was the fire and decedents’ negligent parents, not the state, who deprived them of these rights. Plaintiffs acknowledge that the Constitution does not require the government to protect its citizens from harm imposed by third parties in order to comport with due process requirements,” justices wrote.

“Here, the undisputed facts show that there was no special relationship between the decedents and the state. Neither was taken into custody, nor did the state deprive them of their liberty. Instead, the facts show that the state unfathomably failed to act, leaving both children in the same perilous position they had always been in – no more or no less vulnerable than they had always been.”

The appeals panel, comprised of justices E. Thomas Fitzgerald, Kurtis Wilder and Christopher Murray, said the plaintiffs were unable to show a due-process violation under the state Constitution.

“While the facts of these cases are indeed tragic, this is not an appropriate case in which to impose a damage remedy on the state for a state constitutional due process violation, as no violation can be established.””

State not responsible for 2007 death of Nicholas Braman, 9, in Stanton, appeals court says

[M Live 3/2/12 by John Agar]

 

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