Court Refuses To Toss Md. Foster Care Plan
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- A federal appeals court in Virginia has refused to throw out an agreement to improve Baltimore's foster care system.
A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a lower court's decisions in the 27-year-old case Wednesday.
Baltimore foster children filed a class-action lawsuit in 1984 alleging abuse and neglect. A consent decree spelling out an improvement plan was entered in 1988 and modified in 2009 to address ongoing problems.
The Maryland attorney general's office claimed a subsequent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in an unrelated case eliminated the legal bases for the consent decrees, but U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz and the appeals court disagreed.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
