Kenny A. ex rel. Winn v. Perdue
United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia
356 F. Supp. 2d 1353 (2005)

- Written by Katrina Sumner, JD
Facts
In 2004 Georgia counties DeKalb and Fulton (defendants) had 914 and 1,757 children, respectively, in foster care. Unfortunately, DeKalb County only employed five child-advocate attorneys, and Fulton County only employed four. This meant that child attorneys in DeKalb County had a caseload of 182.8 children per attorney, and attorneys in Fulton County had a caseload of 439.2 children per attorney. Standards across various groups such as the American Bar Association indicated that an attorney cannot effectively represent more than 100 children at a time. Kenny A. (plaintiff) filed a class-action suit against Georgia’s state agencies and officials (defendants) that ran the foster-care system and against DeKalb County and Fulton County. Kenny A. alleged that these entities failed to provide children in foster care with effective legal counsel to represent them in deprivation cases, through which courts determine whether children should be placed in foster care, and in proceedings terminating the parental rights of their parents, whereby the children’s relationships with their parents can be destroyed. Kenny A. sought declaratory and injunctive relief. Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue (defendant) sought summary judgment, arguing that Kenny A. had not provided evidence sufficient to proceed to trial on the claim that foster children were receiving ineffective legal representation. However, Kenny A. was able to provide evidence that demonstrated that the children’s attorneys in DeKalb and Fulton Counties were too overwhelmed to adequately represent their clients. A DeKalb County attorney, Dorothy Murphy, testified at a deposition that the representation provided by the child advocate’s office had been ineffective from its inception. Murphy testified that she did not even meet or speak to 90 percent of her child clients or review their records. Murphy also testified that she did not know where many of her clients in foster care were. A Fulton County child attorney gave similar deposition testimony.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Shoob, J.)
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