DSS sued on behalf of dead 2-year-old girl

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- The estate of a 2-year-old girl who died at the hands of her foster father has sued the Department of Social Services over her death.

The suit on behalf of Passion Gardner accuses state social workers of failing to properly screen or supervise Nathaniel Mitchell, who was convicted last year of homicide by child abuse in the toddler's death.

Mitchell shook the girl until she was unresponsive, and beat her with a belt in March 2000. The girl was shaken so violently part of her brain was severed, prosecutors said.

The suit, filed in Richland County, seeks unspecified damages against Nathaniel and the girl's other foster parent, Sonja Mitchell, as well as eight current or former social services employees, including former agency director Elizabeth Patterson.

The suit says DSS workers had a constitutional duty not to subject the children in their care to an unreasonable risk of harm by placing them with dangerous foster care providers.

Have a thought? Go to the Forums or Chat.  Subscribe  E-mail this story  Write a letter to the Editor  Printer-friendly version  Get news on your PDA  Get e-mail headlines

Social workers didn't use screening standards that would have prevented the placement of the child in the custody of an unsuitable and violent foster care provider, according to the lawsuit.

It also accuses the agency of not having a minimally adequate supervision program.

DSS spokesman Jerry Adams would not talk about the lawsuit.

At the time of the girl's death, DSS officials said the couple completed a 90-day background screening and examination program.

The agency took the child away from her birth parents because they said she and two other children had been abused and neglected.

The girl's birth mother, Laura Tolbert, publicly criticized DSS for removing Passion and two older children from her home in 1998. Tolbert said she had a drug problem at the time but never hit her children.

--From the Thursday, April 3, 2003 online edition of the Augusta Chronicle