Case: Katie A. v. Bonta

This lawsuit was filed in the Central District of California on July 18, 2002, by the class of children and young adults who (a) are in the custody of Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services; (b) have a behavioral, emotional, or psychiatric impairment; and (c) need individualized mental health services. The suit is against County and State agencies for neglecting their responsibilities to provide mental health care services to foster children in California. Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief from the State and Los Angeles County under provisions of the Medicaid Act, Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment (EPSDT), 42 U.S.C. § 1396; the Substantive Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; Article I, section 7(a) of the California Constitution; the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12132; Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 701; and California Government Code § 11135. Plaintiffs are represented by the ACLU of Southern California, Center for Public Interest, Western Center for Law and Poverty, Protection & Advocacy, Inc., Youth Law Center, and Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.

In March 2003, Plaintiffs and L.A. County began settlement negotiations. On June 19, 2003, United States District Judge A. Howard Matz certified class status, and on July 16, 2003, the Court approved a jointly submitted settlement agreement as fair, reasonable, and adequate. The settlement agreement has four objectives: (1) to facilitate a provision of services delivered in a coordinated, comprehensive, community-based fashion; (2) to support the development and delivery of a service structure and fiscal system that supports core practices and services model; (3) to support an effective and sustainable solution that will involve standards and methods to achieve quality-based oversight; and (4) to address the need for certain class members with more intensive needs to receive medically necessary mental health services in their own home, a family settings, or the most homelike setting appropriate to their needs, in order to facilitate reunification, and to meet their needs for safety, permanence, and well-being.

Pursuant to the Agreement, the parties to the settlement appointed a six-member expert advisory panel to determine whether the County met the objectives set forth and implemented the plans. The Panel was required to make regular written reports to the parties and Court of its findings and recommendations. In August 2005, the Panel issued a two-year report finding that the County had not complied with the terms of the Agreement.

Because the state agencies did not participate in the settlement, plaintiffs moved for a preliminary injunction against them on September 15, 2005. Judge Matz granted the motion on March 14, 2006, ordering the State to provide "wraparound services" and "therapeutic foster care," to thousands of Medi-Cal eligible children who are in foster care or at risk of foster care placement. There are approximately 85,000 children in foster care in California and an even greater number of children served by the child welfare system in their own homes. The court's order extends to both groups of children.

(In the meantime, on February 16, 2006, Plaintiffs filed a Motion to Compel Compliance with the Settlement Agreement against LA County. In November 2006, Judge Matz ordered the County to address deficiencies in its implementation plan.)

The State of California appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. On March 23, 2007, the Ninth Circuit vacated the March 14th, 2006, preliminary injunction, holding that Judge Matz had erroneously interpreted the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic, and Treatment (EPSDT) provisions of the Medicaid Act by not "explor[ing] the possibility that the State might only have an obligation to fund the component services of wraparound and TFC, rather than to offer the coordinated complex of services in a single package." Katie A. v. Bonta, 481 F.3d 1150 (9th Cir. 2007).

After further discovery, Plaintiffs filed another Motion for Preliminary Injunction against the state defendants on January 11, 2008. In response, the Court ruled that wraparound services are Medi-Cal eligible and ordered the parties to address how to provide and bill for those services. A Special Master was appointed in March 2009 to facilitate a settlement between the parties.

The parties reached a settlement agreement in December 2011, which included the development of an Implementation Plan to be evaluated by the Special Master. The agreement included a payment of $3.75 million in attorneys' fees, including costs and expenses, to plaintiffs' counsel. The parties developed a two-phase Implementation Plan. On August 28, 2012, the Special Master informed the District Court that he found the Implementation Plan reasonably and sufficiently calculated to meet the objectives of the agreement, and the Court accepted his recommendations on September 13, 2012.

The Special Master and Advisory Panel continued to monitor and report on the completion of the Implementation Plan.

In light of the fact that the District Court's jurisdiction was scheduled to end in December 2014, the Special Master put forth a set of recommendations in his report on September 26, 2014 to sustain the growth in the development and delivery of the intensive services agreed to by the parties. The Special Master submitted a final report to the Court on November 20, 2014. The report identified areas of progress and growth, but also found that there remained significant unfinished deliverables from the settlement agreement and identified the key activities the State should begin or continue implementing.

A status conference was held on November 24, 2014. Judge John A. Kronstadt determined that there was no need for the court to extend its jurisdiction at that time. Subsequently, in August of 2015, Judge Kronstadt issued a minute order stating that while the parties should continue to file reports consistent with the implementation of the settlement, the matter was considered closed. As of October 19, 2017, the parties had stipulated, with approval from the court, that the Panel monitoring L.A. County's progress toward implementation of the settlement agreement should continue to operate through December 31, 2018.

On December 21, 2018, the Panel issued its report for 2017. The plaintiff then filed this report with the court on January 23, 2019. The 2017 report identified major continuing concerns regarding the County's slow progress in implementing the settlement and uncertainty that County strategies would succeed in implementing the Shared Core Practice Model, which the report identified as a key strategy for compliance. The Panel noted its hope that the County's work would have developed data indicators that reflected progress towards full implementation, but because the County has concluded its data systems will not support those tasks, other strategies would be needed to improve performance. Among other things, the report was particularly troubled by the County's decision to change from using an Immersion Process, in which the Shared Core Practice Model would be fully implanted in only a few offices every eighteen months, to instead deciding to use a countywide approach in an attempt to reform all 19 offices and 3 specialized units simultaneously. The Panel report expressed doubt that this approach would bring the County any closer to full implementation of the Shared Core Practice Model, and disapproved of the County's decision to make this change without first notifying the parties or Panel, both of which had treated the immersion approach as a part of the strategic plan.

According to Bloomberg, the case is now closed.