CHARLOTTE NEWS OBSERVER,February 22, 2008
Boy's death spurs lawsuit
4-year-old died in 2006
Mandy Locke, Staff Writer
It has been two years since 4-year-old Sean Paddock suffocated to death in the home of people the state had entrusted to raise him, and the boy's grandfather wants to know why.
Ron Ford Sr., administrator of Sean's estate, this week filed a wrongful death lawsuit and a N.C. Industrial Commission claim to try to force an answer and apology from the adoptive parents, as well as the state Department of Health and Human Services, Wake County Human Services and the Children's Home Society of North Carolina, a private adoption agency.
"One person blames another, who blames another, and there's been no answers," Ford said. "I never want another grandfather to go through what I've gone through."
Sean's adoptive mother, Lynn Paddock, is blamed in Sean's death; a murder trial has been set for May. Lynn Paddock is also charged with abusing Sean's siblings, whipping them with plastic plumbing pipes on the advice of an evangelical minister who coaches parents on rearing submissive, godly children.
Officials at the state Department of Health and Human Services and at Wake Human Services declined to comment on the lawsuit. Efforts to reach The Children's Home Society on Thurwere unsuccessful.
A few questions in particular eat at Ford: Why was he, the biological grandfather, never asked to raise Sean after the Wake County social workers deemed the boy's parents unfit? How could social workers give Sean to the Paddocks after the boy came home from a trial visit with a bruise on his backside?
The answers Ford seeks are tucked in social services and adoption records that he asked a judge to release a few months after Sean died.
The state considers the records secret. At a hearing in July 2006, lawyers for the state and Children's Home Society, a Greensboro agency contracted by the state to find a home for Sean and his siblings, argued that the records should remain confidential, and the judge agreed.
This week's lawsuit could force the state to turn over the records. Ford's attorney, David Mills, said there is no longer a reason to keep them private.
"The typical purpose behind secrecy in adoption is to protect the privacy of the parties, especially the parents who gave up the child," said Mills, a lawyer from Smithfield. "The child is dead, and everyone knows who his parents are. His only representative here on earth, Ron Ford, wants answers."
A snapshot of Sean's short life was made public in the weeks after his death in 2006. After social workers discovered Sean and his siblings living in a home with no heat in December 2002, the children went to live with Ron Ford Jr., Sean's uncle. After about seven months, Ron Ford Jr. and his wife told social workers they couldn't afford to raise the three siblings along with three of their own.
Sean and his siblings spent little more than a year in foster care before Children's Home Society offered to place the children with Johnny and Lynn Paddock. Children's Home Society had previously helped the Paddocks adopt three other foster children.
In January 2005, Sean returned from his first visit to the Paddocks with a bruise covering his bottom. The boy and his older siblings told his foster mother that Lynn Paddock whipped him for playing with the family dog; Paddock said the boy had fallen off his bunk bed. Wake County social workers and Children's Home Society workers believed her and proceeded with the adoption.
The Paddocks formally adopted Sean and his brother and sister in July 2005.
Paddocks were paid
The state paid Children's Home Society for its work. It's not clear exactly how much the agency collected for placing the Ford children; the state considers those records confidential, too. But according to Children's Home Society's contract, the agency could have earned up to $45,000 for linking the three children with the Paddocks.
The Paddocks were paid, too. They received $390 a month to rear Sean, according to DSS records from multiple jurisdictions. The Paddocks were likely paid to raise the other former foster children, deemed "special needs children" by the state. The Paddocks' monthly compensation could have topped $2,400.
If Ford prevails in the lawsuit, he can't collect a dime. Sean's adoption erased all kinship ties to Ford.
"I've nothing to gain here," Ford said. "But I need someone to take responsibility."
Mills, Ford's attorney, said any payment to Sean's estate would benefit his new family: the Paddocks, Sean's two older siblings and other adopted children the Paddocks reared in a remote farmhouse in Johnston County. Mills said he'll argue that Lynn Paddock, charged with killing Sean, isn't entitled to any money.
Ford said he hopes his other grandchildren, Sean's siblings -- now living with new families -- would benefit from any award a judge or jury might grant.
mandy.locke@newsobserver.com or
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