Jury: San Bernardino must pay $113M in child abuse case

San Bernardino County must pay $113 million to a 10-year-old for failing to monitor the household where he was being abused by his stepmother, a jury found.

"This was a very hard-fought battle that lasted almost five years," plaintiff's attorney Steven R. Vartazarian of the Vartazarian Law Firm in Sherman Oaks said of Wednesday's jury verdict. "Our endeavors and principle of pursuing the case were to fix a broken Child Protective Services system in San Bernardino County. The family is very grateful for the results, and I'll do everything in my power to preserve the verdict."

Defense lawyers Raymond F. Dolen of Dolen, Tucker, Popka & Abraham in Redlands and Deputy County Counsel Blakney Boggs could not be reached for comment Friday.

"The County can understand a jury being outraged when a child is harmed. The County is outraged too," county spokesman David Wert said in a statement issued Friday. "But the County believes the anger is misdirected here, and the County will consider its options regarding the verdict."

According to the lawsuit, two emergency referrals were made to the Child Abuse Hotline in September 2013, when the child was living with Christopher Reed and Hannah Thompson.

The county found abuse risk and neglect were not imminent and determined the boy could remain at home while Reed and Thompson were contacted by Child Welfare Services, the lawsuit stated. The county did not open a voluntary maintenance case plan for the household or monitor the progress of Reed and Thompson in completing the services to which they were referred, the suit added.

Defendants "never checked up on or saw the family until May 18, 2014, and after [the child] was found comatose and unresponsive from being struck violently in the back of the head by Hannah Thompson," the complaint said.

The county argued it had qualified immunity. Vartazarian said he was able to get around that defense by identifying where the county breached its mandatory duty.

The verdict came down Wednesday after 11 days of trial testimony and less than a day of deliberations.

The case was presided by Superior Court Judge Bryan F. Foster. Laurell Reed, as parent guardian ad litem v. County of San Bernardino Children and Family Services, CIVDS1416377 (San Bernardino Super. Ct., filed Jan. 30, 2015).

The couple was arrested shortly after the boy was found.

In Decmber 2015, Reed pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor count of offering to pay/receive money for the placement for adoption/consent to an adoption of a child and was sentenced to three months jail time plus three years probation. Thompson pleaded guilty in February 2016 of willful cruelty to a child causing possible injury/death and was sentenced to 15 years in state prison.