The State of Washington has agreed to pay $15 million to three sisters who were sexually abused at a foster home in Centralia in the 90s, plaintiff law firm Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala PLLC (PCVA) announced Monday.
The settlement allows the state to avoid a three-week jury trial that was scheduled to begin Monday, July 22, in Thurston County Superior Court, according to a news release from the law firm.
“We commend the state on the settlement, which will allow our clients to avoid a lengthy and painful jury trial. But more than anything else, our clients hope it sends a strong message to the state to be vigilant in their placements and supervision of foster children,” said PCVA attorney Mallory Allen.
In their lawsuit, filed in February 2022, the plaintiffs allege they were sexually abused between 1990 and 2000, starting when the sisters were ages 4, 5 and 6, by two teenage sons of their foster parents, Bonnie and William Pittman.
The abuse allegedly continued until the sisters were teenagers, according to the news release.
The Pittman foster home in Centralia had been licensed by the state since the early 1980s. At the time the sisters were placed at the home, the Pittmans had seven biological children, and at times there were as many as 12 children in the home, according to a news release.
“Two of the Pittmans’ biological children were witnesses in the lawsuit and described the home as a ‘compound’ with an isolated and insular ‘cult like’ environment with extreme religious views, particularly as it came to the oppression of women, and severe, physically abusive disciplinary practices,” PCVA said in the news release.
The plaintiffs alleged that after the state placed the three sisters at the Pittman foster home, “the social workers responsible for their wellbeing took very little action to make sure they were healthy and safe,” according to a news release. “Under the state’s policies and procedures, social workers are required to meet face to face with foster children on a monthly basis to ensure they are safe and protected during the placement. According to the evidence, the state failed to conduct a single home safety visit with the plaintiffs from 1992 to 1995. Prior to 1992, the State had minimal contact with the plaintiffs, primarily only for a handful of visits with the biological father whose parental rights were eventually terminated.”
PCVA reports that the state endorsed an adoption petition sought by the Pittmans in 1995, assuring the court “that the home was healthy and safe, even though the state had little to no contact with the plaintiffs or the foster home for several years, and even though mental health providers had raised concerns that the plaintiffs were not being nurtured or taken care of at the home,” according to a news release.
Meanwhile, the plaintiffs’ attorneys state, “The plaintiffs were being horribly sexually abused by two of the Pittmans’ teenage sons. The Plaintiffs, along with most children in the home, were also being savagely beaten and emotionally abused by the foster parents under the guise of ‘corporal punishment.’”
State records reportedly show “numerous complaints to the state concerning the foster parents’ physical beatings and ‘corporal punishment’ practices, but the state shockingly found such behaviors did not reach the level of ‘child abuse,’ although agreed corporal punishment is a violation of foster care licensing rules,” PCVA said in a news release.
The law firm stated, “The state continued to place children in the home and took virtually no action to ensure the safety of the plaintiffs or other children.”
PCVA attorneys Vincent Nappo, Mallory Allen and Zabrina Delgado were lead trial counsel on the three cases and were planning to try the civil case.
“PCVA has done extensive work handling foster care sexual abuse cases for over 15 years. Their firm also handles numerous cases involving sexual abuse at schools, youth organizations, youth sports, churches, day care centers, group homes, and hospitals,” the law firm said in the news release.
According to Nappo, the state “completely failed in its responsibility to protect foster children,” saying, “The state removed our clients from drug addicted parents only to place them in a horror house of sexual abuse, physical violence and literal torture.”
Allen commented, “The state abandoned these children and did virtually nothing to monitor their safety and wellbeing.”
According to Nappo, “The main social worker responsible for supervising the plaintiffs at the foster home testified she was given an overwhelming and impossible caseload where she simply could not meet the supervision requirements for her foster children.”
Nappo replied, “There is no good excuse for a social worker to fail to do a single health and safety visit with a foster child for years and years. The state must provide the necessary resources and support to its social workers to ensure foster children are safe and protected in placement, or these types of horrific placements will continue.”
