Bittersweet Justice: Cayuga County, New York

This case occurred in February 2025.

“The New York Court of Appeals ruled in favor of a former foster child Tuesday, finding that Cayuga County was negligent in failing to prevent rampant sexual and physical abuse in her foster home.

In her initial May 2021 complaint, Jackie Weisbrod-Moore said the county she resided in was responsible for her placement and supervision as a foster care child.

Weisbrod was placed in foster care when she was three months old. In the complaint, she says her foster parent sexually abused her from the time she was a baby until she was eight years old, leaving her with broken bones and a head wound in the process.

But the Appellate Division for the Fourth Judicial Department dismissed Weisbrod’s complaint, finding she failed to show the county owed her a “special duty” as a governmental entity to protect her safety.

But Weisbrod said during oral arguments that the “special duty” rule, which was created to rationally limit who is owed special protections by government entities, was developed for circumstances other than persons in governmental custody such as foster care children.

In a 5-2 decision, New York’s highest court agreed and reversed the appellate court’s ruling.

“By assuming legal custody over the foster child, the applicable government official steps in as the sole legal authority responsible for determining who has daily control over the child’s life,” Justice Shirley Troutman wrote for the panel.

The court added that the county is legally responsible to “guard the child” from potential risks of harm arising from the child’s foster care placement.

While the county maintained at oral arguments that Weisbrod needed to show proof of its “special duty” to protect her as a foster care child, the court asserted the county had a built-in responsibility to take care of her as soon as the county assumed custody over her.

“By assuming custody of plaintiff, and thus assuming the authority to control where and with whom plaintiff lived, the county necessarily assumed a duty to her beyond what is owed to the public generally,” Troutman wrote.

The county also argued that the duty of protection can only be imposed on the government while it has physical custody over a child, not just legal custody.

But the court found that although a foster child may leave the county’s physical custody once placed in a foster home, the county still retains legal custody over the child.

“Thus, the child never truly passes out of the orbit of the municipality’s authority,” Troutman said. “A municipal defendant cannot simply shirk liability arising from its exercise of that broad authority by placing the child in a different physical setting.”

In a dissent, Justice Madeline Singas said the majority “rashly enacted a staggering expansion of municipal liability.”

She disagreed that Weisbrod does not need to show that the county owed her a “special duty” of protection.

“Today the majority ignores our precedent, which squarely rejects the recognition of duties outside of that framework under these circumstances,” Singas wrote in her dissent “And adds an asterisk to the special duty rule, opening municipalities to liability for a new class of plaintiffs: every child under the age of 18 in the foster system.”