A Superior Court judge has ruled that a Toronto teenager can proceed with a $2 million lawsuit against the Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto for allegedly conducting a negligent investigation and placing her in an abusive home. The lawsuit, which claims the society participated in filing “false affidavits” to take the girl into its custody, is a rare example of a child taken into care claiming damages. The 19-year-old teen was apprehended when she was 11.She was returned to the care of her father two years later, after the father succeeded in having the society’s employee removed as the family’s case worker, the ruling notes. But while allowing the teenager’s lawsuit to continue, Justice Thomas Lederer dismissed all claims from her father. The father had launched the lawsuit jointly with his daughter and sought damages for “defamation, malicious prosecution, loss of income and all legal costs.”Lederer ruled in April that children’s aid had no duty of care to the father. The only duty agencies have when investigating potential abuse or neglect is to the child, the judge added.The lawsuit’s allegations have not been tested in court. The father, his lawyer and the Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto refused to comment on the case. The father and his lawyer noted that case documents have been sealed by court order and aren’t publicly available.Lederer’s ruling, however, was posted and publicly available on the Canadian Legal Information Institute website (CanLII). Whether Ontario’s 50 children’s aid societies owe a duty to parents during the child protection process has long been the source of anger and deep frustration for those whose children are taken into care. Parents who deal with children’s aid societies are often poor or racialized. Ontario parents who run out of money for housing, for example, are twice as likely to have their children taken from ...
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