Kansas foster care agencies could have more legal protections when being sued for alleged malpractice.
Takeaways
- Kansas foster care agencies would have the same legal protections as law enforcement.
- Foster care agencies say the bill is needed because insurance costs are skyrocketing. That means less money is spent on helping children.
- Opponents of the bill say it will be harder to sue agencies for malpractice.
Kansas lawmakers passed a bill adding foster care agencies to the Kansas Tort Claims Act, which gives social workers the same legal protections as law enforcement. Government agencies get these protections, but the Kansas foster care system contracts out foster care work to private contractors. That’s why social workers aren’t already included.
Foster care agencies could still be sued, but opponents of the bill are worried that the level of legal protection means foster care agencies that mess up on the job won’t get punished.
Like suing law enforcement, these agencies will argue the alleged malpractice was just someone’s discretion at work.
Opponents of the bill imagined a hypothetical scenario in which an agency hires a social worker with a child sex crimes conviction. That social worker could abuse additional children and the agency could be protected from lawsuits because it was their discretion to hire that employee.
Attorney Michaela Shelton has been suing on behalf of Kansas foster kids for decades.
She said these protections will mean fewer kids are able to sue for mistreatment, undermining their ability to hold the system accountable.
“They don’t really have a voice in this system,” Shelton said.
Foster care agencies are sued regularly. Kansas is currently settling a lawsuit for alleged mistreatment. Reports monitoring that lawsuit say the system still struggles to give children needed services like mental health treatment.
But foster care agencies say the bill is needed because their insurance plans are getting more expensive. Those costs mean money is being spent on insurance plans instead of helping children.
Supporters of the bill also say that University of Kansas medical students doing their clinical work and mental health workers get these protections. So it isn’t odd to extend them to social workers.
Patrick Murphy, CEO of the Miller Group, works with foster care agencies on risk and insurance. He told lawmakers in February about a case in which a foster care agency placed a child in a home. The child then ran away and drowned in the neighbor’s pool. The foster care agency was sued even though agency social workers weren’t at home.
Insurance companies like predictability, he said, and being sued for millions at any time isn’t predictable.
St. Francis Ministries has seen its insurance rates jump 232% since 2020. Cornerstones of Care has had a 235% increase since 2022. KVC Kansas is paying 202% more. And the Wichita Children’s Home had a 112% increase.
“Kansas child placement agencies are facing a crisis that threatens the stability of the entire child welfare system,” Murphy said in February. “They cannot afford, or in many cases, they cannot get coverage they need.”
The major contractors didn’t say how much insurance premiums increased in nominal dollars. The agencies also didn’t say whether they are being sued more often.
Lawmakers approved the bill, but not without reservations.
The bill originally gave additional legal protections forever, but it was amended and those protections will run out on July 1, 2029. Sen. Ethan Corson, a Johnson County Democrat, pushed for an end date. His goal is to come back and address insurance premium issues so these protections aren’t needed.
“There is a very serious challenge being presented here,” he said in the March Senate debate. “We need to be cautious when we are providing these sort of, essentially, immunity protections for providers.”
