Children’s Civil Rights Lawyers Settle Lawsuit for Undisclosed Settlement Amounts for Foster Child Who Livestreamed Suicide on Facebook
Child abuse injury lawyers Howard Talenfeld and Stacie Schmerling represented the estate of a 14-year-old foster child who died by suicide while live streaming on Facebook from her foster parent’s bathroom. Still dressed in her school uniform, Naika Venant went live on Facebook at 6:12 p.m. on November 10, 2016, and hung herself. Earlier that day, the 13-year-old foster child from Miami had stolen a phone from her caseworker. Now, as an audience of three watched her video feed, she clumsily navigated the iPhone’s camera, flipping through filters before settling on one in black-and-white.
The lawsuit, filed in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County, FL,, brought civil rights and negligence claims against Florida Department of Children and Families, the Florida lead agency managing child welfare in Miami Dade County, Florida, case management agencies, shelters, private child welfare agencies, and foster parents for operating a system of care with insufficient therapeutic placements and a lack of services. The lawsuit alleged that all of these agencies failed to protect the child from abuse, neglect, and mental health deterioration while in foster care.
Naika’s death on January 22, 2017, led to national outrage, finger-pointing among agencies, and leadership shake-ups within Our Kids, the Miami-based contractor responsible for her foster-care placements. Most damning, the lawsuit claims Naika’s civil rights were violated when she was housed in multiple inappropriate foster placements, which denied her the safety and stability she required – ultimately leading to her tragic and untimely death at the age of 14. In February 2017, one month after Naika died, DCF found that Our Kids had 25 children on a waitlist for specialized therapeutic foster homes. Three-quarters of those kids were 13 or older.
At the time of the filing of the lawsuit, attorney Stacie Schmerling was quoted saying, “We are hoping to obtain justice for the emotional anguish that Naika suffered as a result of her sexual abuse in foster care and the failures of the Miami-Dade child protection system that bounced her in and out of 16 inappropriate placements during the last eight months of her life,” The lawsuit was settled with each of the providers for confidential amounts and the money has been used to support Naika’s siblings.