Графство Мур в Северной Каролине выплатило более 50 тысяч долларов за урегулирование иска о необоснованной госпитализации двух детей

Moore County is paying more than $50,000 to settle a federal lawsuit over allegations of unnecessary institutionalization of two children by the county’s Department of Social Services, even though the county denies any wrongdoing. The settlement, signed by both parties in May, is the latest development in the case following claims of unnecessary institutionalization of two siblings with disabilities — referred to as J.S. and S.S. in court filings — after their mother, Rumina Slazas, was hospitalized for cancer in July 2022.  The children were returned to Slazas in 2023, but the county allegedly prioritized institutional placements for the children over community-based programs, leading to physical and mental distress, the lawsuit said. The suit was first filed in August 2024 by Disability Rights NC, which represented Slazas and her kids throughout the case. Moore County tried to have the case dismissed last year but was unsuccessful, and a judge ordered the case to move forward in July 2025.  The county agreed to grant a settlement to Slazas and her children but made it clear that the settlement was not an admission of wrongdoing and that it denies the allegations made in the complaint, raising questions about the likelihood of similar cases occurring in the future. What happened? In July 2022, Slazas was hospitalized for cancer treatment. Moore County took custody of her children the following month: J.S., her 16-year-old son, and S.S., her non-verbal 15-year-old daughter, both of whom have intellectual disabilities, the lawsuit said. After returning home that same month when her cancer went into remission, Slazas tried to regain custody of her kids. However, the county argued she lacked the support to properly take care of them, the county’s response to the complaint said. By early 2023, Slazas could take care of her children on her own, but despite her remission and low chance of reoccurrence, Moore County didn’t allow her daughter and son to come home until August and December 2023, respectively, according to the suit. Mary Craven Adams, outside counsel for Moore County, told Carolina Public Press in a statement that the children were initially taken into custody due to a court order. The children were deemed to be living in “unsafe conditions,” including “being in the care of an intoxicated parent” and an “uninhabitable” home environment. This “intoxicated parent” was the children’s father, who was arrested for not properly caring for the children while Slazas was in the hospital, the county’s response said. The institutional placements that each child was placed in allegedly caused physical and mental distress. After spending more than a year in an intermediate care facility, J.S. “no longer trusts people easily and seeks constant reassurance that he will not have to go back to the ICF” and “self-harms” by hitting himself when he gets stressed, the lawsuit said. S.S. spent almost nine months in the emergency department at UNC Health after she was allegedly dropped off there by social services. In April 2023, medical experts confirmed she had experienced “significant mental and physical decompensation and regressions in her skills,” due to the isolation she experienced while staying there, the complaint said.  However, Moore County pushed back on this claim, saying the plaintiff’s choice of words was “inflammatory and inconsistent” given the county’s efforts to find a different placement for S.S., it said in its response.  After this, she was transferred to a residential facility in South Carolina, but Slazas claimed during visits that she observed “bruises and bite marks” on S.S. as well as behaviors that looked like “a seizure or overmedication,” the complaint said. The alleged abuse was investigated by Child Protective Services in South Carolina but was never substantiated, the county’s response said. Like her brother, S.S. has become more cautious since returning home and is anxious about being separated from her mother again. She also has frequent accidents now, requiring her to wear diapers, the complaint said. However, Adams insisted the county did its due diligence in providing the proper care and accommodations for the children after taking them into custody. “Moore County ensured that the children received necessary medical attention and undertook efforts to identify appropriate placements, including outreach to individuals known to the family such as teachers, friends and relatives, and coordination with available resources to locate a suitable placement,” she said. “Despite these efforts, no viable or cooperative alternative placement was available at the time that could safely meet the children’s needs, and the Department (of Social Services) continued its involvement under court supervision.” The plaintiffs — Slazas and her children — sued the county and claimed it violated their rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act by acting with “deliberate indifference” when it came to providing the necessary services for the children — including community-based placements — and violated their civil rights by not returning them to Slazas sooner and causing them suffering, the complaint said. The county attempted to have the case dismissed last year, arguing that the plaintiffs should have to point out specific placements that were ready and willing to take the kids, rather than just say there were other placements available. The plaintiffs responded saying the complaint laid out a “plausible claim,” the July 2025 order said. Ultimately, the motion to dismiss was denied in July 2025. While Judge Thomas D. Schroeder acknowledged that Moore County made a valid point in saying the plaintiffs should provide specific alternative placements, he still believed the plaintiffs made a “plausible claim,” even if their allegations were “far from robust,” the order said. Once the motion was dismissed, the case was allowed to move forward, entering a discovery period that stretched on for months, CPP previously reported. Settlement negotiations with family and Moore County The recent settlement was reached after much back-and-forth between the parties over the past several months as they negotiated the terms of the settlement.  An initial agreement was made during a mediation held on Sept. 3, 2025, during which both parties agreed to a “conditional settlement,” the mediator report said. However, Moore County allegedly tried to renegotiate the terms of the settlement the day after the mediation, attempting to add an agreement that wouldn’t allow the plaintiffs to talk about the case or the settlement with the public, the October 2025 motion to enforce said. Moore County later denied this allegation. When the plaintiffs responded on Sept. 5 saying they weren’t interested in renegotiating, the county responded saying it would seek “judicial review and sanctions” against DRNC if the plaintiffs didn’t cooperate, the motion to enforce said. The plaintiffs agreed to “non-material revisions” proposed by the county, but rejected others that they felt “materially departed” from what was agreed to during mediation. The county still wasn’t satisfied, the motion to enforce said. With both parties caught in a deadlock, the plaintiffs requested intervention from the court to enforce the settlement. In Moore County’s response to the motion, it insisted it never asked for confidentiality and claimed to take issue with some of the language of the settlement, arguing the retaliation language was “not phrased in a neutral way” to show “there was no admission of liability or wrongdoing” from the county. It also opposed the inclusion of a severability clause — a clause that guarantees if any part of the agreement is voided, the rest of the agreement remains intact — saying the parties never agreed to one, the county’s response said. In February, the judge determined that the “most productive next step” would be for both parties to return to mediation and sort out their issues, urging both to remember that “a settlement usually involves compromise by all parties,” the order said. Both parties returned to mediation, holding a conference on April 30 that resulted in a “complete settlement” of the case, the May 2026 mediator report said. The final agreement awarded $55,000 total to the plaintiffs from Moore County: S.S. received $19,000, J.S. received a little over $12,600, Slazas received $8,000 and DRNC received a little over $15,000. The county maintained its position that there was no wrongdoing on its part and agreed to not take any future retaliatory action against Slazas. Both parties signed the agreement in May, the settlement said. “I did nothing wrong to lose my kids, I just got sick,” Slazas said in a DRNC press release.  “This settlement does not undo the trauma my children and I experienced, but I am hopeful it results in better outcomes for other children with significant disabilities in the child welfare system.”  It’s not common for these cases to result in monetary settlements, as they’re usually resolved by different placements or providing other support for the kids, the press release said. Corye Dunn, director of public policy for DRNC, said the settlement in this case was likely due to its “severity” and Slazas’ perseverance. “I think it’s so difficult when you have experienced this kind of traumatic family experience to then be mindful about what the consequences will be for the next family,” Dunn told CPP. “This family could easily have kind of put their head down and said, ‘We want nothing to do with this publicly. We want to make sure that no one ever knows our name.’ But they didn’t do that.” From Moore County’s point of view, the settlement is merely a “compromise” that avoids “the burden, expense, and uncertainty of continued litigation,” Adams said. “Moore County fully supports the hard work which was done by its employees in the best interests of this family, and remains committed to fulfilling its responsibilities to protect vulnerable children while complying with all legal obligations and serving the community in a fair and responsible manner,” she said. How did we get here? The federal Olmstead decision, established in Olmstead v. L.C. in 1999, aimed to reduce the institutionalization of those with disabilities. Part of the Americans with Disabilities Act, it required those with disabilities to be placed in community-based programs if they wanted to be, if the services were appropriate and if the services could be “reasonably accommodated,” CPP previously reported. North Carolina came up with its own statewide plan based on this decision, but DRNC CEO Virginia Knowlton Marcus stated in 2024 that it “lacks ambition, imagination and investment,” CPP previously reported. “The law requires that kids with disabilities receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs,” Marcus said in the DRNC press release. “This case and the settlement reached on behalf of this family highlight the real harms that happen when children are institutionalized.” The most recent draft of the plan was received by the state’s Olmstead Plan Stakeholder Advisory Committee sometime in the past month, but is still “underwhelming,” Dunn told CPP. “It still reflects a fear of committing resources or the inability to commit resources without the involvement of the General Assembly, and it still reflects a pervasive fear among people responsible for our publicly operated healthcare system that there will just never be enough workers or enough services,” Dunn said.  “I think that kind of approach, that presumption of impossibility really has consequences for people with disabilities because it results in underinvestment and insufficiently ambitious goals in general.” No other similar lawsuits are currently underway from DRNC, though the organization does have a broader pending case that focuses on the “increased likelihood” of minority children in DSS custody being placed in institutional settings as opposed to those not in DSS custody, Dunn said.