He added that he was sure there would be such a cause if the matter ever made it to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court already has ruled that DSHS caseworkers can be held liable for negligent investigations that break up families. Yesterday's decision essentially expands that 1995 decision. In February, appellate judges Marlin Appelwick, H. Joseph Coleman and Mary Kay Becker agreed. Yesterday's Supreme Court action, along with other legal fallout from the Wenatchee investigations, comes as a result of yet another costly challenge to local and state government.
More civil challenges are in the pipeline.
Eleven defendants have been released from prison in the past year alone, their convictions overturned by the state appeals court in Spokane through an unprecedented special hearing process. Though attempts were made to settle the Roberson civil case out of court before the civil trial in 1998, Wenatchee and Douglas County, and Wenatchee's insurer, the Association of Washington Cities, have since declined to settle. We're still trying to get the city and county to consider the possibilities of resolving it. In 1994 and 1995 police and state social workers undertook what was then called the nation's most extensive child sex-abuse investigation. At least 60 adults were arrested on 29,726 charges of child sex abuse involving 43 children.