A Cherokee County mother has sued several state child welfare workers asserting that they withheld information about a foster teen placed in a home where he sexually molested her 5-year-old son.

The mother, identified by the pseudonym Jane Doe in the federal lawsuit, said workers purposely concealed a psychological review that warned the teen was a sexual threat who should not be placed with young children.

After the Division of Family and Children Services placed the teen in the home about three years ago, the teen, called Calvin in the lawsuit, molested the 5-year-old boy, who as a result "has been severely injured both physically and psychologically," the lawsuit claims.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Charles Pannell Jr. denied defendants' motion to dismiss the case, filed about a year ago. The defendants in the lawsuit include state Division of Family and Children Services workers Kaye E. Braddy, Janet E. English, Julie McClung Evans and Susan Giersberg.

DFCS officials did not respond to calls seeking comment Thursday. The state Attorney General's Office, which is representing the workers, declined to comment.

In the state's motions, it said the workers lawfully performed their duties and violated no obligation to the 5-year-old child. Nothing the workers did contributed to injuries to the child, the state said.

The state also said the workers are protected from such civil lawsuit by the "doctrine of immunity," which protects government workers from liability so long as they do not violate statutory or constitutional rights.

Moreover, the state said the workers did not have a formal duty to the 5-year-old boy, but to the teen, called Calvin in the court papers.

"The defendants had a duty to find Calvin a good home and they did," the state said in court papers.

The mother's attorneys, Mathew Nasrallah and William Quinn III, said the workers violated the boy's constitutional rights to be free from physical assault and sexual molestation.

Calvin, the foster teen, was placed in the home of the mother's parents, but the mother asserts that DFCS knew that she and her son often lived there. The grandparents had seen Calvin on a television show that features foster children available for adoption called "Wednesday's Children," and wanted to adopt him.

Some child welfare advocates say DFCS has a history of not providing prospective foster or adoptive parents with a child's complete history, including medical needs and other information.

That can result in problems for the child, since the new parents don't know about the child's condition. The parents may be surprised to learn a child has problems they cannot handle.

In some cases, the child must be removed from the home, said Ira Lustbader, associate director of Children's Rights Inc., a nonprofit that brought a 2005 lawsuit to improve foster services. He said that has contributed to the problem of foster children bouncing from foster home to foster home.