The Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF), a private child welfare agency, and a drug assessment vendor became involved in the protection of a baby at the time of her birth. However, within weeks, they persistently failed to ensure her protection. At birth, both the baby and her mother tested positive for amphetamines. Indeed, the infant’s parents had an extensive history of child and domestic abuse, substance abuse and untreated mental health issues. While in the hospital, the parents physically brawled with each other. As a result, the hospital reported the potentially dangerous situation to DCF. DCF assigned an investigator to protect the child from future abuse and to assess risk. The biological mother left the hospital against medical advice, leaving the baby alone. DCF and the private child welfare agency determined the biological parents presented an immediate, significant, and clearly observable danger to the baby and decided to send the baby home with a family friend. Within a couple of weeks, the friend returned the infant. Despite having identified the danger, DCF and the private agency placed the 3-week-old infant into the home with her biological parents. From there, the safety plan largely consisted of periodic visits, during which the parents would not allow the case workers to hold the baby or see her bare skinned.
Over the next six weeks, the infant was subjected to repeated episodes of physical abuse, including violent thrashing, shaking, and head trauma. When she was almost two months old, the baby was brought to the hospital while actively seizing. She had makeup covering bruises on her forehead. Doctors discovered skull and rib fractures in multiple stages of healing. She had also suffered a subdural hematoma, brain shearing, retinal hemorrhaging, and intracranial swelling, which caused bleeding to migrate down her spinal cord. The significant physical injuries resulted in brain damage and cerebral palsy that would debilitate her for the rest of her life.
The victim’s grandmother sought to adopt her, and her adoption lawyer recommended she reach out to Justin Grosz, the co-founder of Justice for Kids. Focused exclusively on representing children who are victims of physical and sexual abuse, Justin was well-experienced in helping children within the child welfare system. He knew the victim needed a lifetime of therapy, services, and medical treatments due to the failures of the child welfare agencies that were supposed to have protected her. An early mediation was unsuccessful.
Justin’s first challenge was to parse out what responsibilities each of the three agencies had and at what points they failed to uphold them. He created a timeline of the agencies’ negligence and the victim’s multiple injuries. He also took scores of depositions, gathered thousands of pages of records, and assembled a trove of diagnostic imaging, videos, and photos for experts to review. He even had surveillance video footage of the parents abusing two other children in a manner similar to the victim’s experiences.
However, the Defense argued that the victim’s abuse was an unpredictable, isolated incident, which they could not have guarded against. They attempted to either minimize or eliminate their own responsibility. Justin knew he needed to show the jurors that the victim had sustained a pattern of persistent abuse throughout the weeks that these child welfare services were supposed to be monitoring and ensuring her safety.
Justin brought on several experts, including a child abuse pediatrician and a pediatric neuroradiologist, to evaluate the neuroimaging and the head-to-toe skeletal scans. The victim’s rib fractures were in different stages of healing, indicating multiple episodes of trauma. The neuroradiologist even identified some of the brain bleeds as acute versus older. However, Justin needed to illustrate to jurors not only the quantity of the injuries but their context: where and when upon the body had they been inflicted? He had his experts collaborate with each other, as well as with DK Global, which was tasked with producing an accurate 3D animation of the experts’ findings. The presentation would allow jurors to conceptualize the timeline of abuse the victim had suffered.
The animation opened with a photo of the hospitalized infant, which transitioned into a 3D illustration of her. The camera zoomed past the infant's bandages and scalp to a 3D reconstruction of her skull fractures while comparing it to her radiological imaging. Side-by-side comparisons were made of the fractured skull versus a normal skull. Returning to the infant's exterior, the animation removed slices from the infant’s head to demonstrate precisely where the neuroimaging slides had been taken while also demarcating the subdural hematomas and brain swelling. Following this, internal 3D-views highlighted in red the injuries to her brain, spinal cord, and multiple ribs.
The animation was provided to the Defendants and utilized during the deposition of the pediatric neuroradiology expert, highlighting the powerful visual that would be presented to jurors at trial. Ultimately, all three Defendants settled the claims. Due to the severity of the case, DCF agreed to enter a consent judgment against them for $4,000,000. Because DCF is considered a sovereign entity in Florida, there are statutory restrictions which limit recovery to $200,000 absent a specialized bill which would need to be enacted by the Florida legislature. Undeterred, Justin and his team has lobbied the legislature, and in August 2024 bills were introduced in the House and Senate which are working their way through the legislature, to authorize payment of the remaining $3,800,000 in funds for the victim (DCF agreed not to oppose the bill). On February 10, 2025, the DK Global visual was played before Florida’s House and Senate special masters during the final hearing. Ultimately, the victim was adopted by her biological grandmother and moved to Chicago. The family felt relief, validation, and vindication in knowing the litigation was finally over and that the victim would receive the services she’d need throughout the rest of her life.
Justin Grosz, a co-founder and partner at Justice for Kids at the Kelley Kroneberg law firm, has been a veteran trial lawyer for more than 25 years. His practice has dedicated itself to providing legal services to abused, disabled, and catastrophically injured children. He has tried over 230 jury trials and achieved multi-million-dollar awards for his clients. He served as an Assistant State Attorney in Broward County, Florida, for a decade and as a Special Prosecutor on numerous cases. During 2023-2025, he was recognized as one of the best personal injury litigators in America.
