Province says it should not be held liable for foster abuse

Photo: Contributed

Robert Riley Saunders

A woman who is alleging years of abuse in the Okanagan foster system should sue her foster parents, not the Ministry of Children and Family Development, says the provincial government in response to a recent lawsuit. 

In a third-party notice filed on Jan. 30 in B.C. Supreme Court, the provincial government placed the blame for years of alleged abuse at the feet of the plaintiff’s biological father and two foster parents.

“The province is not vicariously liable for the activities of foster parents… who at all material times acted independently in managing the day-to-day care of the plaintiff,” provincial lawyer Graham Rudyk said.

The court filing was in response to a civil lawsuit filed Dec. 20 by a now-19-year-old woman, TG, who alleged she was removed from the care of her biological mother at age three. The suit said she spent five months with a foster family, during which time she was physically abused by the parents and sexually abused by another foster child in the home. 

Once she was removed from the abusive foster home, the lawsuit alleged the province was negligent in placing TG with her biological father, who had a history of criminal convictions involving domestic violence.

While in the care of her biological father for the next 12 years, TG claims she was physically abused. 

The provincial government, however, in naming the father in its third-party notice said he should be held liable. The government makes similar assertions about the foster family TG stayed with between Nov. 2015 and Oct. 2017 after she was removed from her father’s care. 

She was removed from the second foster family’s care in 2017 after a foster parent overdosed on injection opioids in a child’s bedroom, requiring naloxone to be resuscitated. The government says the foster parents should be held liable for any damage done to TG. 

“The province will be filing a response to civil claim herein denying, [among other things], that the province was negligent as alleged, or at all, with respect to the alleged negligent placement of the plaintiff with the third party,” the government’s filing says.

The government’s full response to TG’s claim has not been filed yet. The original lawsuit has also been amended to remove Terra Plut, a social worker, as defendant.

"The claims against Ms. Plut were never pursued. Ms. Plut was not served with the Notice of Civil Claim and Ms. Plut did not participate as a defendant," said Plut's lawyers in a statement to Castanet.

The lawsuit also names infamous former Kelowna social worker Robert Riley Saunders for his actions after she left the second foster family. 

Mirroring numerous other allegations by other former children in Saunders’ care, TG says he used the money from a joint account to pay for his own mortgage and trips, before closing the account in January 2018 and completely emptying the account. 

The ministry uncovered the thefts by Saunders in December 2017 and offered TG and independent living arrangement in February 2018, the suit says. Saunders was terminated in May 2018.

The provincial government's third-party notice makes no mention of the allegations involving Saunders. It has already admitted vicarious liability for his actions in other lawsuits involving him. He has not been criminally charged.

TG gave birth to two children, in 2016 and 2017. Both were removed from her care and placed in the foster system.

Over the past year the provincial government has been hit with several lawsuits from former foster children alleging abuse in the system.