CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Sanctions have been ordered by a federal magistrate judge against the state health department for not holding onto emails tied to an ongoing lawsuit of the alleged mistreatment of thousands of children in the foster care system.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Cheryl Eifert said Thursday that she didn’t find the state had intentionally deleted evidence. However, Judge Eifert did acknowledge that top officials previously with the Department of Health and Human Resources didn’t do enough to make sure the state’s Office of Technology kept emails that were connected to former foster care leaders more secure and not from being deleted. She called the deletion of emails a misunderstanding between DHHR and the state Office of Technology.
Eifert is also making the state health department pay an unknown amount to plaintiffs to reimburse them for their attorneys fees and other related costs.
In a Friday news release from DoHS, the agency said, “While DoHS does not agree with all conclusions in the magistrate judge’s decision, DoHS appreciates the court’s careful consideration of these issues.”
The agency went on to say “DoHS is pleased with the judge’s decision to reject the plaintiff’s allegation that DoHS intentionally failed to preserve emails of former employees.”
The order comes in the wake of a Jan. 11 hearing at the federal courthouse in Huntington.
The lawsuit was filed in 2019 by A Better Childhood, a national child advocacy organization, Disability Rights West Virginia and Shaffer and Shaffer, a West Virginia law firm. The suit was filed on behalf of thousands of foster children against DHHR and Gov. Jim Justice.
Those groups argued that the emails being deleted was intentional.
A Better Childhood claimed the state failed to preserve thousands of emails that they’d requested in 2020. They argued that the emails could have shown how Child Protective Services workers were overburdened, how children were went to be in unsafe living conditions and how foster leaders dealt with certain crises in the foster care system.
More than 6,100 kids are currently in foster care. DoHS is on a mission to recruit more first time foster care parents to provide stable homes for foster children.