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Abused kids get their day in civil court.

Article Excerpt
A year ago, a mother was caught on videotape repeatedly punching and slapping her four-year-old daughter, who sat strapped in a car seat in the back of a car in a department store parking lot.

The ensuing criminal case against the mother made national news, but not because what the mother did was unheard of--statistics show that each year, thousands of children suffer severe abuse or neglect at the hands of their parents. What made the case newsworthy was that the abuse was witnessed by untold numbers of people who saw the videotape on television and the Internet. The evidence was clear and convincing.

Parental child abuse is usually shrouded in silence and secrecy. Sometimes, members of the child's family or community may know of or suspect the abuse, but often, especially in cases of sexual molestation, the only witnesses are the victim and the abuser.

"That's one reason why tort actions against abusive parents are rare," said Jay Howell, a Jacksonville, Florida, plaintiff attorney who has represented several child abuse victims in tort actions against their parents. "Often, there is no corroborating witness, so proof can be a real practical problem."

Other obstacles include statutes of limitations, ill-defined and inconsistent standards for what constitutes abuse, and a decades-old judicial antipathy toward these lawsuits. Yet in recent years, dozens of abuse victims have cleared these hurdles with groundbreaking cases. And while some lawyers and children's rights experts say allegations of abuse are best left to the criminal courts, others say the civil justice system has a role to play in ensuring justice and compensation for abuse victims.

Marybel Reinoso, an attorney in West Palm Beach, Florida, is in the latter camp. She's representing 19-year-old Mellissa Frederick in a civil lawsuit against Mellissa's stepfather, mother, and paternal grandmother for injuries related to her stepfather's sexually abusing her for six years, beginning when she was seven.

Reinoso was familiar with Mellissa's story long before the lawsuit was filed; she was the state prosecutor in the stepfather's 1999 criminal trial for charges stemming from the abuse. He was tried and convicted of sexual battery on a child under...

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