Los Angeles County Department of Children & Family Services v. Vincent S.

Following their mother’s arrest in late 1996, four young girls were placed in foster homes. By July 1997, the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services knew that the girls’ *482 father (Vincent Edward Scroghan) was living in Indiana, and should have known that (since 1996) Vincent had been (and still is) sending child support payments for the girls to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Bureau of Family Support Operations (now the Los Angeles County Child Support Services Department). But the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing or how to spell. For about two years, the Department searched lackadaisically for Vincent Scriggab, and sometimes Vincent Scriggag, in California and only California. In 1998, when the dependency court noticed the spelling error, no light bulbs flashed over the Department’s head, no one thought to check the file for other errors, and no one looked for Vincent Scroghan in Indiana. No one contacted Child Support Services.

It was not until March 2001 that the Department finally did the obvious— it sent a request for information to the “Parent Locator Clerk” at Child Support Services, who responded promptly…