Mom Falsely Found to Be Abusive Wins $3.1 M Lawsuit Baby Taken Away & Given to Father; Now 8 Years Old Still Can’t Get Custody: Threatened with Sanctions if She Tries “We fought the last two weeks with our hands tied -- and under severe limitations. But, in the end, the jury saw through it all, and did the right thing.” - Lina “We are taught that our government is comprised of a system of checks and balances; that its three branches, the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary, act as a counter balance created to avoid the predictable accumulation of power in a centralized government…This fourth check is rarely spoken of. Its you. The jury. The conscience of the community.” - Shawn McMillan, Lina’s attorney A jury finds social workers with the Department of Children and Family Services intentionally and willfully seized a child from his mother without a warrant and did so with malice. Now, LA County has to pay Rafaelina Duval $3.1 million dollars. It was on November 3, 2009 when Duval's baby Ryan was removed from her custody. He was only 15 months old. DCFS social workers accused Duval of general neglect and willfully and intentionally starving her child. Baby Ryan was taken without a warrant. Attorney Shawn McMillan says, "The law is very clear and they get training on this, you can not seize a child from its parents unless there’s an emergency." Not only was baby Ryan taken away without a warrant, social workers ordered no reunification because they were concerned Duval had Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. They claimed Duval could intentionally make her child sick to gain attention. They based it on the fact, that Ryan was small for his age and Duval would take him to doctors hoping they could find what was wrong with him. Duval was only allowed monitored visitation --- an hour an half every two weeks. Seven years have passed and Duval still doesn’t have custody of her child. But she’s never stopped fighting for Ryan who is now 8 years old. This week, a jury found DCFS social workers intentionally and willfully seized her child without a warrant and did so with malice. Duval was awarded $3.1 million. An additional amount is expected for punitive damages and that will be coming directly from the social workers themselves. Duval says, "No money can ever satisfy how I feel." Local mother falsely accused of child abuse gets $3.1m settlement; still doesn't have custody of son http://www.foxla.com/news/local-news/215681539-story An interesting aspect of this case is that Lina is going to be awarded punitive damages directly from the social workers on top of the State paying 3.1 million dollars. Neither the State nor the County has admitted wrongdoing and they will most likely appeal, so we will continue to follow this case. What this news story does not cover is that CPS finding the mother abusive aided Family Court in giving custody to the father. CPS often colludes in helping judges switch custody to fathers by fabricating abuse by mothers, exonerating fathers of abuse through unfounded or unsubstantiated findings, “temporarily” putting the child into foster care as an interim step, or simply shunting the case into Family Court as a “custody dispute”. Wrongly exonerating fathers of abuse is the much more common strategy since CPS can be sued if they take kids wrongly, as in Lina’s case so they leave that up to the family court judge. Once in family court, the judge can do whatever s/he wants as there is no effective oversight, which is why custody cases need to be heard in a real civil court with juries “Trial by jury is the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles