Case Story: A County Took their Children — We Fought Back

Having and raising children is among the great joys of human existence. Words cannot
express what it’s like. Many a page has been written on the matter, but until you
experience it for yourself, it’s hard to fully understand its breadth and depth.

This is particularly true about the early years of childhood, when a child bonds with, and completely depends on, their parent. Few things predict success better than a child being born into a loving family, to good parents who spend quality time nurturing them.

But what about when this precious gift is taken away from a parent? Meaning the child is removed from their home. Through no fault of their own. With no explanation that holds water. For nearly two years.

That’s what this case is about.

Our clients lost custody of their children due to demonstrably false allegations against
them. And rather than identifying and rejecting the allegations, county officials instead
doubled down and fought tooth-and-nail to keep the children away.

But to our clients’ credit, they never gave up.

They fought battle after battle until they regained custody of their children and held the county accountable for their truly abhorrent behavior.

Here’s how we helped them do it.

The Background

While our clients’ story is long and sordid, it really boils down to one thing: a bad divorce and the weaponization of children during the divorce. Our clients are sisters. One is the mother of the children at issue and one is the aunt.

The divorce related to the mother. While going through a contentious divorce with her now ex-husband, our client began to notice that he seemed to be trying to use their children against her. It was little things at first, but it quickly escalated.

It culminated in the unthinkable: allegations of sexual abuse by the children against both of our clients. But as with all false allegations, the problem was that the allegations didn’t make sense. And they also seemed coached—almost certainly by the ex-husband. Our clients did what any innocent person would do: they denied anything ever happening.

Out for blood, the ex-husband used the “allegations” to try ruin our clients.

First, he went to the Fargo police and reported the abuse. To Fargo’s credit, they saw through the allegations, flagged concerns with their veracity, and refused to charge our clients with any illegality.

Undeterred, the ex-husband then moved to Mahnomen County, Minnesota, where he grew up, and reported the supposed abuse there. While the police still weren’t interested, this time child protective services were. Why? Because the staffer assigned to the file was a high school classmate of the ex-husband.

The fix was in.

Despite doing almost no investigation at all, the county made a finding that they believed the sexual abuse had occurred, and that both our clients had committed it.

The fallout was swift and severe. Our client who was the mother of the children immediately lost custody of them, and they were completely removed from her home.

Our other client, the aunt of the children, also lost all visitation rights, and because she was a teacher, her license was suspended as part of the abuse finding. In a split second, our clients’ lives were turned upside down.

Many would give up in such a situation. Or lose hope. Or quit. Not our clients.

Instead, they embarked upon the fight of their lives, first to get their children back, then to hold Mahnomen County accountable for their horrendous wrong.

The Challenge

After the county’s finding of abuse, our clients immediately appealed the determination. They hired a skilled attorney from a different firm than ours. And with their attorney’s help, our clients waged war on Mahnomen County.

They challenged the finding and everything related to it.

At first, the county seemed to be winning, as the initial appeal of the finding was upheld. But because that finding also occurred within Mahnomen County, it still felt like the hometown fix was it.

So the attorney helped our clients appeal the decision to administrative law judges in St. Paul, Minnesota. A fair fight in a neutral location And there, the attorney and our clients cleaned house—first for the mother and then for the aunt.

Two judges heard the facts of the case, reversed the findings of abuse, and offered blistering critiques of the conduct of Mahnomen County and its child protective services employees. 

With the rulings, our clients were vindicated. The mother was given back custody of the children and the aunt was given back her teaching job. And while this was wonderful, and frankly a long time coming, there was something hollow about the “victory.”

Questions began to bubble up in their heads:

• How could the county have done this to them?

• Should they be allowed to just do this and face no consequences?

• What if they do this again to someone else?

Eventually, the “fighter gene” in our clients’ DNA took over and they decided they couldn’t just sit back and let Mahnomen County get away with what they had done.

So they contacted the attorney, who reached out to us. 

And when we heard their harrowing story, we knew we had to help.

The Lawsuit

Realizing the egregiousness of conduct, and the importance of making the bad actors pay, we partnered with a law firm to litigate the civil lawsuit against Mahnomen County.

And given the high stakes, our partnership decision was an easy one: Robins Kaplan LLP.

Robins Kaplan is the premier civil rights law firm in Minnesota. They are based in Minneapolis and have handled some of the biggest civil rights cases in the state’s history.

Put simply, they are the best.

Thankfully, they also think highly of us, so they pick up the phone when we call.

And once we told them our clients’ story, they were all in.

Here, “all in” meant a civil lawsuit in federal court in Minnesota. While the allegations were somewhat technical, the gist was simple: Mahnomen County illegally took our clients’ children away from them when they knew or should have known the allegations made by the children were false.

Easy to understand, not as easy to prove.

And not because it didn’t happen, but because the law related to parental rights and custody of children is not entirely clear.

But again, because the facts were so horrendous, we thought it was worth it to try.

So alongside Robins Kaplan, we litigated the case for nearly a year.

We asked for documents from the county, we conducted depositions of county employees (including the ones who made the incorrect findings of abuse), and we even participated in private mediation.

Based on our work, and based on what appeared to be an understanding of their mistakes, Mahnomen County never wanted to take the case to trial.

The facts were just too bad for them.

And so pretty quickly, we realized this case would settle—the only question was for how much. Because in all civil lawsuits where fault is not contested, the only sticking point is determining the fair amount to “right the wrong.”

The Settlement

Here, after protracted negotiations with the law firm representing Mahnomen County, we landed on a payout of $3.25 million. 

Life-changing money for just about anyone, no doubt.

But given all that was lost—a fair and just amount.

It was also one of the largest such settlements in the area of parental rights and child custody in state history. A truly groundbreaking achievement.

And it couldn’t have happened to more deserving people. Again—few fight like our clients. Few never give up. Few take things this far.

But they did. And their original attorney did. And we did. And Robins Kaplan did.

It was a perfect storm of people wanting justice and wanting to do the right thing.

The Takeaway

During an interview with the Fargo Forum after the settlement was announced, Dane DeKrey, the firm’s lead attorney on the case, summed up our feelings best:

“The real heroes of this case are these sisters, because they have had to fight so many battles, so many times where most people would just give up and stop fighting. Just the sheer will of these people to say, ‘I didn’t do this. I am willing to do whatever it takes, no matter how long it takes, for this to be right.’”

This case was always about making our clients whole. We think we did that and then some. And it’s among our proudest moments since we began the firm.

It’s truly the reason we do this work.