This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
You'll have to forgive U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell's departure from routine Thursday.
In announcing her decision to dismiss a lawsuit that for 14 years has driven reform of Utah's child welfare system, Campbell - in an unusual show of ceremony - congratulated attorneys, caseworkers and others, inviting them to stand.
"This is a big day," said Campbell, who has presided over the case since 1995. "It looks like you finally did what I never thought you'd get done. We hope this is the end."
Campbell's order comes after opposing parties agreed on May 11 to the dismissal, essentially ending more than a decade of court oversight of Utah's Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS).
The agency is subject to one final review in fall 2008. If it passes muster, the case will be permanently dismissed, without a hearing, on Dec. 31, 2008.
If there's any "backsliding" on reforms, "we could be back in court," said Leecia Welch, a senior attorney at the National Center for Youth Law, the Oakland, Calif.-based group that filed the lawsuit.
That's unlikely, according to center director John F. O'Toole, who says his group works in states across the country to improve child welfare systems.
"Usually there's acrimony through to the end. This is one of the few states where parties agreed the system is in great shape," said O'Toole.
Dismissal of the lawsuit in 2008 will save Utah taxpayers $300,000 in monitoring expenses. But Duane Betournay, the new DCFS director, describes the watershed event as a beginning, not an end.
"Tomorrow you'll see the same look of determination on our faces," said Betournay.
The national center sued Utah in 1993 over alleged unconstitutional conditions in the foster care system. Among the allegations: child abuse investigations were cursory or never completed; children were languishing - even dying - in foster care and were denied education, basic health care and behavioral therapy; and foster parents and caseworkers weren't well trained.
Instead of challenging the suit - known as David C. v. Leavitt - the state settled, agreeing to reforms across the entire system. But change happened slowly.
"At the beginning, it was like this big battleship. You can't turn a battleship around quickly. It has to be done methodically and by all hands," said Pamela Atkinson, a community advocate who acted as mediator between the center and the DCFS.
When the state failed to comply with the settlement, the court appointed a monitor to shepherd the DCFS through a nine-point blueprint for improvement known as the "Milestone Plan."
In 2003, Utah began to show real strides, enhancing caseworker training and hiring 45 new caseworkers, said Welch.
The system has grown dramatically. From 1994 to 2007, the DCFS' budget nearly quadrupled from $40.5 million to $152.5 million. The number of caseworkers jumped from 282 to 612. There has been one foster care death in six years.
Growth doesn't always lead to improved quality, but in Utah's case "it most certainly has," said Welch.
Hiring more caseworkers has led to a reduction in caseloads, and a new "team approach" to investigating abuse further guarantees "no caseworker acts alone," said Welch.
Utah also is nationally recognized for its "child and family team planning" meetings geared toward keeping families intact, said Welch. "The goal now is to have everyone who is important to the child and family sitting at the table."
Finally, the system is much more transparent, capturing data to measure its performance.
Welch cautioned that the DCFS does not exist in a vacuum.
"You can improve the child welfare system, but if there aren't adequate services for families, or representation for parents or a strong court system, it won't do any good," she said. "There comes a time when we let the community take back control of the system and demonstrate that they can sustain the reforms."
The history of 'David C.'
The lawsuit David C. v. Leavitt, a class-action civil-rights lawsuit on behalf of all Utah's foster children, was filed in 1993 by the National Center for Youth Law.
Named as plaintiffs were 17 children, ranging in age from 3 to 17 years old. Some had languished in foster care; others remained at home with abusive parents.
The most egregious of the alleged failures involved the lawsuit's namesake. Scalded, burned with cigarettes and left without food, David - then age 3 - was removed from his parents' home in 1988 along with his two brothers.
Nine months later, David's older brother was killed in their foster home. The cause of death: "blunt force injuries of the abdomen," the lawsuit claimed.
David and his surviving brother were sent to a new foster family who said David came to them with a black eye, swollen nose, bruises and patches of hair missing from his head. The boy bounced to other foster homes, who told caseworkers he acted out and had imaginary conversations with his dead brother. He received "virtually no psychotherapy," said the lawsuit.
David C. was adopted in 1994. He is now 22, his whereabouts are unknown to child welfare officials.