Lawsuit settled over foster child sex abuse

YAKIMA -- A lawsuit accusing state social workers of negligence in the sexual abuse of an 8-year-old foster child has been settled for $290,000.

The alleged abuse occurred in 2002 after the boy was placed in the Ellensburg home of a new foster mother who was also housing an older boy with a documented history of sexually abusive behavior, said Tim Farris, a Bellingham lawyer who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the victim.

Farris alleged that the state Department of Social and Health Services did not properly train the foster mother or warn her that the older boy had been sexually abusive.

The boy, who is now 13 and has been adopted by a family in Yakima, was placed in the same bedroom as the older boy and raped, Farris said.

A DSHS spokesman told the Yakima Herald-Republic that the settlement was a compromise to avoid trial.