About 18 months ago, Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley was parading families before both Lehigh County's Board of Commissioners and Northampton County Council. Though Pinsley has no medical degrees, he nevertheless maintained that numerous Lehigh Valley families were the victims of unfounded claims of child abuse. At the very least, he insisted that county child protection agencies should seek second opinions before attempting to separate a child from his family. He even alleged that he, too, was a victim of threatened staffing cuts over a report he was releasing.
At the time, Pinsley was running for state auditor general. Once he lost that race, his concerns about misdiagnosed child abuse mysteriously vanished.
While he may have ridden off into the sunset, looking for the next issue he can find to propel himself into higher office, the families he once championed filed a class action lawsuit against Lehigh Valley Health Network ... in Philadelphia County. The grass there may not be greener, but the jury verdicts are.
Lehigh Valley Health Network, in turn, has attempted to join the Children and Youth Agencies of Montgomery, Lackawanna, Monroe, Lehigh, Pike and Northampton Counties. After an importunate five tries, the Court has said, "Enough Already!" (I'm paraphrasing). Judge Gwen Bright has dismissed the attempted joinder with prejudice, meaning no more swings will be permitted.
Judge Bright issued no opinion, but the counties argued they are immune.
The class action suit against Lehigh Valley Health Network and a cavalcade of doctors continues, with no end in sight.
19 comments:
Maybe the attornies representing the "abused" need another BMW, or a nicer summer home?
Hasn’t Pinsley really made Lehigh Valley’s children less safe with this stunt ?
There were false claims of abuse and the counties are immune. I am a parent who was accused of abuse and when I appealed it, Northampton County C & Y offered no evidence of abuse other than a psych evaluation by Dr. Valliere. The appellate court found that Dr. Valliere either projected her own feelings into my child or confused the child's case file with another. To compound the error, when asked where the abuse was, case worker Amber Gross put her head down on the desk and said "I don't know". You would think that counsel for C &Y Daniel Correnti would have conceded at this point, but no. His response to my counsels request to withdraw the indicated findings of abuse was ". No. We believe we have a good case". Well... the higher court didn't think so. I don't know about these other counties, buy Northampton Children and Youth is incompetent and malicious from top to bottom. I know because my daughter and I have been victims of their incompetence. And it is precisely because they are immune. Amber Gross is immune, Daniel Correnti is immune. Even disgraced Dr. Valliere can argue some level of immunity.
There is no incentive to do better, because there is no consequence for getting it wrong. Only the families destroyed by these pathetic burecrats face the consequences of this agency's mistakes. I hope this attempted class actions serves a a wake up call for these C& Y departments but i doubt it.
He's despicable.
7:01 - I’d tend to agree. It seems like a judge is now saying that the party that is supposedly overseeing the care of these children has no liability for their actions. That’s a terrible precedent to set.
That said, I doubt the welfare of the children was the reason for Pinsley’s actions. It was always about getting the ball rolling (on the taxpayers dime) on a lawsuit against LVH and Pinsley getting the political benefits in terms of publicity and contributions that come with it.
My recollection is that he received a sizable contribution from the lawyer representing the families shortly after he released his “audit”.
7:54, Dp us a favor and post a link to the appellate court decision that found in your favor. Those decisions only refer to people by initials, so your privacy is not compromised. If you have no link, please provide the case number so I can read it and verify your claim.
Will do.
Department of Human Services
Burea of Hearings and Appeals
Docket No. 021-20-0501
Report No. 8768057
Here are just a few of the findings upon appellate review.
"Dr. Valliere's findings in the subject child's evaluation appear unreliable"
"Dr. Valliere's evaluation gave a contradictory explanation for finding serious mental injury"
"As parents are free to raise children as they wish, unless unlawful, and the subject child's testimony and the entire hearing record contradicts Dr. Valliere's conclusion on this major point, it appears Dr. Valliere either projected her own safety concerns onto the subject child or confused the subject child with another patient."
So what we have here is a Northampton County Agency who doesn't like parents asserting their rights, then takes the child to a handpicked psychiatrist so that they can generate an artificial and retaliatory finding severe mental abuse...absent any evidence of any sort of abuse. Then, when the parent challenges the finding, the courts determines that Dr. Valliere is either projecting or essentially disorganized to the point of incompetence.
And THIS is how it works in Northampton County people. And with any luck, most of you will never know just how broken the system is. Those of who have experienced it will never be able to "unsee" it. I would encourage all the parents out there to share your stories and name names. If the court won't address this criminal behavior, we can at least shame them into accountability...maybe.
In addition to the order, there are hundreds of pages of transcript that provide a disturbing glimpse into the decision making process used by Northampton County C&Y, their general lack of due diligence, and the routine manner in which they indicate abuse and/or use hand picked "forensic specialists" to generate evidence to justify their decisions. They do this for one time reason. Now a parent has to find their own forensic specialist to even challenge the finding. There are very few of those around, they often have long wait lists, and they are VERY expensive. So while C &Y makes legally dubious allegations that impact perfectly fit parents and their children, those parents have the deck stacked against them from the outset. This discourages challenge and often results in the parent "voluntarily" accepting "services" just to maintain any meaningful relationship with the child.
I would encourage any parent who's child was interviewed by Dr. Valliere at the request of Northampton C & Y or Custody Division to contact an attorney.
I would assume they filed in Philly because LVHN is now a part of Jefferson, and Jefferson is based there.
Lehigh County has Pinsley, Northampton County has Zrinski- always on the lookout for their next gig.
I don't have any direct involvement with children and youth but I do know how hard of a job it is being responsible for children's safety and their obligations to assure a safe environment. They are highly regulated and we have all seen the stories of children dying despite involvement in our cities. Thete cam be bad employees in any agency but there are also great employees in every agency. Let us not forget that.
This reminder is of little comfort to the parents and children who have had their lives have been irrevocably altered by bad actors and unlawful agency actions. And when the bad actors and unlawful actions are challenged and proven...there is zero accountability to the public or to the victims of these actions.
Always worry when no post. Hope all is well
8:33, I am fine, thanks. Sometimes I simply forget to schedule my story to post, which I did again last night.
Glad u r ok!@
Oh, Boo Hoo.
2 out of 3 ain't bad.
My son was take away by the Lehigh County and I was accused of hurting my son and it was his father and I explained to the county my son s Grandmother want to raise him and if they give custody of his father this will happen they thought I was crazy and I was right all along . To this day I hav emu son only 60 percent.
Lehigh county did the same thing to me . And with no apologies.and a Dr Seasock had to come to my house and he didn’t believe my son had an eating disorder because he was eating so he told the county that I was making my son medically sick .3 month later my son was diagnosed with an Autism Eating Disorder called A F F RI D
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