No appeal; pay Marissa

Although a Palm Beach County jury has awarded Marissa Amora $35 million in a 3-year-old negligence suit against the Florida Department of Children and Families, a money-wasting appeal could give lawmakers cover to ignore the 6-year-old severely brain-damaged girl for at least another year.

After three weeks of testimony, jurors concluded that DCF should pay 75 percent of the damages ($26 million) because the agency was negligent in its investigation. The Legislature must approve a claims bill for the state to pay any amount over $100,000. A claims bill can be filed only after any appeals have been forfeited or completed, and, with rare exception, they must be filed by Aug. 1 for consideration during the next spring's legislative session. DCF, which has 30 days after the May 17 verdict, has not decided whether to appeal.

In the past 10 years, the Legislature has not awarded more than $10 million in a claims bill. Will any local lawmaker have the political clout and moral purpose to protect Marissa's future financially because DCF failed to protect her physically?

With one year of his term left, House Appropriations Chairman Joe Negron, R-Stuart, probably won't be around to vote on Marissa's claim. But Rep. Negron, who is running for state attorney general, dismissed the jury's decision:

"DCF never hit this child once. DCF never abused this child. It is impossible for any agency of the government to predict the future or to prevent evil people from doing bad things. In a free society, no one can expect the government to be the guarantor of anyone's safety, including a child." This from the lawyer who sued the state in 1éé1, taking $40,000 for legal fees and expenses of the $150,000 award granted to his client, who had been wrongly jailed and convicted of attempting to murder a Port Salerno woman. Sen. Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, who chairs the Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, who is set to take over leadership of the Senate in 2007, did not return phone calls about the case.

In the past two years, DCF has paid more in legal fees and costs ($2.34 million) to defend tort/negligence claims involving child-care and/or abuse from clients than it has in settlements to the victims ($2.31 million). In that same period, DCF spent another $10.8 million -- one third on legal fees and costs, the rest on settlements -- on federal civil rights child-care and/or abuse claims. DCF is fighting 110 lawsuits involving child-care and/or abuse claims from clients and has paid more than $6 million to defense attorneys in those cases.

Although the jury foreman in the Marissa Amora case said the jurors were trying solely to address the needs of a girl whom DCF abandoned, not trying to send a message with the large damage award, the verdict speaks loudly. It would be wrong for the state to keep paying lawyers to defend what the state never should have allowed.