The benevolent ambitions of government aid programs too often fail to deliver help to the people who need it most. Nonprofit service providers strive to fill the gaps, but their resources are also stretched to the limit. Whether the clients are foster parents trying without adequate government support to give troubled children a home, or domestic violence survivors struggling to enforce orders of protection, Morrison & Foerster lawyers step in to hold government accountable for its promises. To learn more about our work meeting basic needs, click
here.
Establishing a Constitutional Right to Timely Care and Benefits
Since 2007, MoFo and co-counsel Disability Rights Advocates have been pressing the U.S. government to provide necessary care and compensation to veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That year, we filed a class action lawsuit seeking to hold the government accountable for delays in treating veterans with head injuries or debilitating psychological problems—delays that have contributed to a tragically high number of suicides among veterans. The lawsuit highlights a Department of Veterans Affairs so overwhelmed that soldiers wait years for decisions on whether they will receive benefits for their suffering. We won a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that the government has violated veterans' constitutional rights by delaying care, only to see the ruling reversed after further review. While the legal outcome remains uncertain, the case has promoted awareness of the unmet needs of returning veterans and has led to increased hiring of mental health care workers and other vital reforms.
Supporting Children in Foster Care
The federal Child Welfare Act requires states that accept federal funds for foster care to reimburse foster parents for the costs of providing specified necessities of life. In California, however, foster care payments lagged 30-40% behind the actual costs of care, leading to a shortage of family foster homes that has left many children to grow up in less nurturing group homes. In 2011, California finally implemented increased foster care rates, the result of a lawsuit MoFo and the Children's Advocacy Institute brought in 2007. Along the way, we won a critical ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that foster parents can seek judicial enforcement of the right to receive adequate funds for the children in their care, setting a precedent that may support similar results in other states around the country.