Bubby Strode is a boisterous and spirited 6-year-old. He loves his siblings, playing on his Nintendo Switch and wants a pet turtle for his birthday.
But that’s not what people notice first about Bubby: Instead, it’s his severely burned face and amputated limbs. He got the devastating injuries over five years ago, when a space heater hanging precariously above his crib caught fire, nearly killing him.
That incident is now the subject of a lawsuit against the state, which alleges the Department of Children, Youth and Families was negligent in leaving the infant in his biological parents’ care despite numerous reports of abuse and neglect.
His story is one of many. In recent years, lawsuits against Washington’s child welfare system have mounted, and deaths and near-deaths of children whose families were previously reported to Child Protective Services are rising.
Last fiscal year, the state paid out $500 million in settlements and jury verdicts, a record in state history. The overwhelming majority came from the Department of Children, Youth and Families, which was responsible for nearly $400 million.
Many of the largest payouts from DCYF arise from claims the agency improperly investigated disclosures of abuse, negligently placed children in foster homes, or left them in the care of biological parents where they were abused.
Bubby, who has gone by the nickname since birth, now lives in Lakewood with his adoptive parents, David and Sarah Strode, and his seven siblings. His sister, Matilda, who the Strodes also adopted, is similarly the subject of a lawsuit against the state.
The Strodes allege that 3-year-old Matilda was also left in the temporary care of her neglectful parents despite the state’s knowledge of a court order prohibiting them from being alone with her. Matilda was suffocated while in bed, suffered brain injuries from oxygen deprivation, and can’t walk, talk, eat or breathe independently. She will likely require medical supervision for the rest of her life.
Bubby’s biological parents had “extensive history” with the department, including the biological father being subject to a dependency petition regarding his other children, and CPS received a report the day before his birth in 2019 that the biological mom used drugs while pregnant, according to the lawsuit. Bubby was named after a strain of marijuana by his biological parents. The Strodes renamed him Leo upon his adoption.
The lawsuit alleges DCYF negligently left Bubby in the custody of his biological parents’ custody before the department received drug test results for Bubby, which came back positive for amphetamines and methamphetamines.
The lawsuit claims the department then failed to adequately investigate several reports concerning the family over the next nine months. Callers expressed concern about their ability to parent and one witness reported that the biological parents did not feed or bathe Bubby, leaving him in a car seat all day.
One CPS caller reported Bubby lived in a “shed” with a space heater precariously hanging above his crib wrapped around the rafters.
“Despite the obvious danger to Bubby, DCYF never conducted a meaningful investigation, inspected the shed in which Bubby was living … or required the bio-parents to submit to drug testing,” the lawsuit alleges. “The consequences were horrific.”
CPS allegedly lost track of the infant for months, and after locating the family the agency failed to look at where Bubby was living, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges DCYF “did nothing” to respond to his report.
When Bubby was 9 months old, the shed caught fire. Bubby was badly burned, had his hands and several toes amputated, and lost his eyelids.
His sister, Matilda, was similarly born drug-addicted, and her biological parents previously had their parental rights terminated for her older sister, according to a separate lawsuit. This time, the department concluded leaving Matilda in the care of her biological parents would “lead to substantial harm” and placed her in the care of her maternal grandmother, according to the lawsuit.
The grandmother worked graveyard shifts, and allegedly DCYF failed to tell her about a court order prohibiting Matilda from being left unsupervised with her biological parents. She was suffocated in bed, and responding police officers found evidence of heroin use, according to the lawsuit. Her biological parents were not criminally charged in connection with her injuries.
The family is suing the state and the caseworkers who handled Bubby’s and Matilda’s cases in state and federal court, respectively, alleging the department and its agents were grossly negligent.
In recent years, the department has prioritized an approach that keeps children in the care of their biological parents: a move that has been deeply criticized, including the passage of a state law that went into effect in 2023 that raised the standard of removing a child to “imminent risk of physical harm.”
“Everyone wants families to be together, but you can’t force that in situations where parents have demonstrated over time a complete inability to provide safety for children,” said David P. Moody, the Strodes’ lawyer. “We need to look at the best interest of the child first and foremost.”
The lawsuits demand unspecified monetary awards. Department spokesperson Nancy Gutierrez said in a statement that DCYF does not comment on active litigation.
“I would say the majority of the general public has no idea what is happening to our state’s children and what’s happening in foster care,” Strode said about the family’s decision to pursue legal action.
“The only way they’re going to change anything, the only way they’re going to admit to anything, is when it comes to money,” Strode said.
On a summer morning a few days before Bubby’s birthday, the family gathered in the kitchen for breakfast. Sarah Strode tended to Matilda, who needs tracheostomy care and tube feeding daily.
The family has two biological children, and the other six were adopted through foster care. They had been fostering for 17 years, Strode said, and had two daughters who were burn victims when they heard in 2020 about a severely burned infant at Harborview.
“I knew I always wanted to adopt,” Strode said. “I lived with a family that kind of took me in as their own in my high school years, and so I really loved that idea of paying that forward.”
Taking the two children in was still an adjustment.
At just 13 months old, Bubby was severely traumatized and didn’t trust other people, Strode said. He did trust their dogs, though: his first word was “doggy.”
Matilda would seize up to 70 times a day when they first took her in. It was still unclear whether she would survive. But the Strodes thought: “We’re gonna give this kiddo a family as long as she needs one.”
She spent a year on hospice care before being taken off hospice.
In the coming months, as the family learned about the children’s cases, Strode said she had the impression that “nobody admitted that anything wrong happened.”
“The state has really decided that putting children in harm’s way and kind of gambling with their lives and their situations is OK right now,” Strode said.
When the Keeping Families Together Act passed in 2021, Strode said she “knew that it was going to be horrific.” After years of experience in the foster care system, she felt during Bubby’s adoption that DCYF officials had “no empathy” for what they had gone through.
“It’s not just that they were born with drugs in their system, it’s that DCYF knew that these same sets of bio-parents had lost privileges with respect to their children in the past,” Moody said, adding that DCYF needs to investigate allegations of child abuse and neglect “outside of their own echo chamber.”
With turnover and busy workloads, children’s cases are treated like “a hot potato,” Moody said.
“They’re living with two children that are profoundly injured for life due to the gross negligence of DCYF,” Moody alleged. “They need to involve members of the public, and they need to be curious and good listeners.”
