Posted on 06/17/2014 2:39:24 PM PDT by Hojczyk
Justina Pelletier is going home.
A Massachusetts judge ordered the 16-year-old Connecticut girl, who was taken from her family by child welfare advocates more than a year ago, to be returned to her mother and father effective Wednesday. The ruling caps a long-running medical custody dispute that began when two highly-respected Boston hospitals clashed over the girl's diagnosis. The case sparked national outrage, and led Lou and Linda Pelletier, of West Hartford, Conn., to wage a bitter legal battle.
“To hear the news is overwhelming," Lou Pelletier told FoxNews.com moments after learning of the ruling. "Now we can certainly begin the healing process.”
The case began when the girl's parents disagreed with a psychiatric diagnosis given by Boston Children's Hospital and said they wanted their daughter returned to her original physician at Tufts Medical Center, who had previously treated Justina for mitochondrial disease, a group of rare genetic disorders affecting cellular energy production. The Massachusetts Department of Children and Families moved in, claiming Justina was the victim of m"medical child abuse."
Mat Staver, of the Liberty Counsel, which battled the Bay State bureaucracy on behalf of the Pelletiers, said the ruling handed down by Massachusetts juvenile court Judge Joseph Johnstonwas well-deserved.
"We are thrilled that Justina will finally be returning home," Staver said in a statement. "The family looks forward to putting this 16-month nightmare behind them. Justina and her family now begins the process of healing both physically, emotionally, and spiritually."
In May, Justina was moved from Massachusetts to a facility in Thompson, Conn., allowing her parents to visit with their daughter, but doing little to dampen their determination to win her back for good. In a 45-second, videotaped plea, first posted on a Facebook support page last week, Justina is seen sitting in a chair and pleading plaintively
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Now the law suit should start. I smell millions!
Justice?
That would be removing the license
to practice Medicine of every “physician” involved
who kidnapped the child for their EXPERIMENTS.
Amen!
Great news, the state officials and hospital folks who colluded in this need to be fired, jailed for at least a decade, and all their personal assets and pensions awarded to these people. Save the taxpayers and get real justice done.
Does this court ruling apply to Hondurans, Mexicans etc. ?
Now the law suit should start. I smell millions!
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I smell tens of millions. I would LOVE to be on one of the juries that will be sitting for the various lawsuits.
About time.
I will going record with my belief that the Pelletiers won’t get a dime in compensation. I hope I’m wrong, and if someone reminds me of this prediction later, I’ll be happy to say, “Hey, I was wrong!”
I think you will be happily wrong. Justina was a competitive figure skater when the state snatched her from her parents. Now she is confined to a wheelchair. This, after the snatchers claimed her parents were making her sick. [That is a loose summary; they actually claimed Munchausen’s by Proxy—a similar indictment.]
Her father said having her home will be like the return of a “prisoner of war”. Tell me those aren’t fighting words. The parents have a massive case. They’ve been smeared & their daughter’s health has deteriorated precipitously. Hard to find a jury that won’t see it their way.
In order to go in front of a jury, they have to find a judge who will allow the case against a major state agency. It’s across state lines, too, which means a Federal judge.
The Massachusetts Department of Children and Families has been sued before & can be sued again. It is a troubled agency with a wretched track record, & there is no particular magic about bringing a case against it.
Have there been substantial judgments against MA DCF?
I can’t give you exact figures. I moved out of MA about 6 yrs ago. It IS a corrupt state & many of the judges are political hacks. However, I know that the agency has been sued, and as I said, I see no reason why it can’t be sued again. Their record is abysmal.
Any chance at all?
Because anything less is not justice.
It’s one thing that they’ve been sued, and something else again if plaintiffs have won significant judgments.
At some point incompetence, corruption & outright evil hit critical mass, even in deep blue states like MA. The Pelletier case is simply egregious. Let’s see how the lawsuit/suits play out. As I said at the beginning, you may be happily surprised.
One last thought. I’m not a lawyer. If I were, however, & I were advising the Pelletiers, here’s what I’d tell them. Forget about DSS for the time being. First we will sue the living daylights out of the doctors & hospital that initially misdiagnosed Justina & precipitated this year-plus multitiered nightmare. We will Clean Their Clocks. Afterward, with that resounding victory in hand, we will turn our sites on DSS.
Perhaps their commanding rout of the medical profession will give sufficient momentum to prevail against the DSS. But even if it doesn’t, they will hardly emerge penniless. Justina was seriously misdiagnosed & her parents were slandered. Significant damage was done. This family will not emerge from their legal forays empty handed. That is a foregone conclusion.
I hope you’re right.
Forget the hospital -- Children's is not-for-profit Harvard teaching hospital, and Massachusetts has a "charitable cap" of $20,000 damages for non profits. The psychiatry doctors at Children's should be fair game, however. I don't know what sovereign immunity issues would be involved in suing DCF (if we had a honest AG, there would have been a criminal investigation long ago!).
If the case is over(?), does that mean the gag order imposed on her Tufts doctors is automatically lifted?
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