Michigan Foster Care and Group Home Sexual Abuse Attorney

You were taken out of your home because the state decided you were not safe there. Then you were harmed in the placement the state chose.

The adults there were licensed, paid, and required to protect you. The law looks at them, and at the agencies that placed you.

You are not the only one. Michigan had about 9,200 children in foster care custody at the end of 2024. In the first half of 2023, state records reported 215 special investigations across 41 contracted child-caring institutions, involving 375 allegations, with violations established in 104, and 57 more across 30 child-placing agencies, with violations established in 24. Those counts come from the Period 27 report of the court-appointed monitors in Dwayne B. v. Whitmer, the federal class action over Michigan’s foster care system, under active oversight since 2008 and still open.

Vahdat Weisman Law sexual assault attorneys represent survivors of abuse in Michigan foster homes, group homes, and residential facilities. Call (734) 469-4994 for a free, confidential consultation. No attorney fee unless we recover for you.

Who Can Be Held Responsible

Most places a child is sent are not run by the state. Michigan’s system runs largely on contractors. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services licenses foster homes, child placing agencies, and child caring institutions through its Division of Child Welfare Licensing, but most Michigan foster children are placed through private child placing agencies under MDHHS contract, and residential facilities are largely private child caring institutions.

That distinction decides who has governmental immunity, and private agencies do not. MCL 691.1407(1) grants immunity to “a governmental agency” engaged in a governmental function, and subsection (2) grants conditional immunity to an agency’s officer, employee, member or volunteer. A private child-placing agency, a private residential facility, and a licensed foster parent are none of those things, and they answer to ordinary tort law.

A claim against MDHHS itself, or against your caseworker, is harder. Employee immunity under subsection (2) fails only where the conduct is gross negligence that is the proximate cause of the injury, which subsection (8) defines as “conduct so reckless as to demonstrate a substantial lack of concern for whether an injury results.” Odom v. Wayne County, 482 Mich. 459 (2008), governs intentional torts. Because a child in foster care is in state custody, federal civil rights claims are also available.

Your Rights as a Child in State Custody

Michigan sits in the Sixth Circuit. Children in state-regulated foster homes have a substantive due process right to be free from the infliction of unnecessary harm, and state officials may be liable under 42 USC 1983 for deliberate indifference to known risks of abuse (Meador v. Cabinet for Human Resources, 902 F.2d 474 (6th Cir. 1990)). That right has been clearly established here since Meador, which limits qualified immunity (Lintz v. Skipski, 25 F.3d 304 (6th Cir. 1994), a Michigan case).

Doe v. Claiborne County, 103 F.3d 495 (6th Cir. 1996), put it plainly. If the right to bodily integrity means anything, it certainly encompasses the right not to be sexually assaulted under color of law. A claim against an institution based on inaction requires a clear and persistent pattern of abuse, notice or constructive notice to the governing body, tacit approval amounting to an official policy of inaction, and a direct causal link between that custom and the injury. Those claims were dismissed because no pattern was shown. This kind of claim needs a documented history, not a single incident.

What the Rules Required the Facility to Do

The rules were specific. Michigan’s licensing rules for child care institutions require one direct care worker for no more than 10 residents during normal awake hours and 20 during normal sleeping hours, with variable-interval eye-on checks no more than fifteen minutes apart when residents are asleep or unsupervised. They bar unsupervised contact with children by anyone convicted of child abuse or neglect, or of a felony involving harm or threatened harm to an individual within the preceding ten years, or listed on the central registry as a perpetrator. Facilities must report any incident causing serious injury or illness requiring inpatient hospitalization to the parent or legal guardian, the referring agency, and the licensing authority within 24 hours, and must keep a written plan to ensure compliance with the child protection law.

Under MCL 722.115, the department must investigate an applicant and make on-site visits before licensing, and may not issue or renew a license without a criminal history check. Foster home licenses require checks on the applicant and each adult household member, and a conviction for a listed offense requires denial, non-renewal, or revocation.

What the State Investigated, and What It Wrote Down

When abuse is reported in a licensed setting, Michigan runs two investigations. MDHHS’s Children’s Protective Services Maltreatment in Care unit investigates the maltreatment itself, with face-to-face contact with alleged victims required within 24 or 72 hours depending on the priority assigned. The licensing authority separately investigates compliance with the licensing act and rules.

Both create a file, and neither is easy to obtain. Under MCL 722.627(1), CPS written reports, documents, and photographs filed with the department are confidential and may be released only to the persons and entities the statute lists. Access comes through an authorized recipient, through discovery once a case is filed, or through the licensing record.

If you were told the investigation was unsubstantiated, that does not end your civil case. CPS classifies findings under MCL 722.628d, from Category V, no evidence of abuse or neglect, up to Category I, where a court petition is required. The burden is not different either: MCL 722.622(n) defines a confirmed case as one in which a preponderance of the evidence establishes abuse or neglect, the same standard that governs tort liability. Whether an administrative finding carries over is a collateral estoppel question, and Michigan applies estoppel to proceedings that were adjudicatory in nature, subject to review, and intended to be final (Holton v Ward, 303 Mich App 718, 731-732 (2014)). Preservation letters should go to both agencies early, because retention schedules limit how long records are kept.

When the Facility Itself Is Responsible

A facility is rarely responsible simply because it employed the person who hurt you. Michigan declined to adopt the aided-by-the-agency exception (Zsigo v Hurley Medical Center, 475 Mich 215 (2006)). An assault for the employee’s own purposes ordinarily falls outside the scope of employment, so an institution is usually reached through its own conduct, though that rule does not preclude vicarious liability in every instance (Hamed v Wayne County, 490 Mich 1 (2011)).

What the facility itself did, or failed to do, is the claim. Michigan requires reasonable care in hiring and retention, with liability turning on whether the employer knew or should have known facts showing a relevant dangerous propensity; even a violent criminal record does not automatically establish negligent hiring (Hersh v Kentfield Builders, Inc., 385 Mich 410 (1971)). Lewd comments alone did not make a rape reasonably foreseeable absent a prior criminal or violent history or an unmistakable particularized threat (Brown v Brown, 478 Mich 545 (2007)). Hamed, relying on both, framed foreseeability around the employer’s actual or constructive knowledge of prior similar conduct and of the employee’s propensity to act on it. The knowledge has to connect to the kind of harm that happened.

So the claims that reach a facility are direct: negligent hiring where a required check was skipped, negligent retention where prior complaints were documented and ignored, negligent supervision where the ratio and check rules were not met, and in narrower cases failure to report.

MCL 722.623 makes a long list of professionals mandatory reporters, requiring an immediate report to centralized intake and a written report within 72 hours. MCL 722.633(1) makes a person required to report who fails to do so “civilly liable for the damages proximately caused by the failure.” That liability is narrow. It runs only to the identified child about whom the required report should have been made, so a report missed as to one child creates no liability to a child harmed later (Marcelletti v Bathani, 198 Mich App 655, 659, 662 (1993); see also Murdock v Higgins, 454 Mich 46 (1997)). And a mandatory reporter cannot constitutionally be compelled to report his or her own abuse, so the claim cannot rest on the perpetrator’s failure to report himself (IS v Crestwood School District, published December 16, 2024).

How Long You Have to Bring a Claim

Nobody has to have been charged. MCL 600.5805(6) gives you 10 years to sue for damages sustained because of criminal sexual conduct, and says expressly that no criminal prosecution need have been brought or resulted in a conviction.

If you were abused as a child, MCL 600.5851b lets you file at any time before the later of reaching age 28 or three years after the individual discovers, or through the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered, both the injury and its causal relationship to the criminal sexual conduct. That second branch runs from what was reasonably discoverable, not only what you actually knew.

Two limits sit on top of that. The discovery provision does not apply retroactively to revive claims already time-barred before the statute’s June 12, 2018 effective date (McLain v Roman Catholic Diocese of Lansing, 514 Mich 1 (2024)). The age-28 extension does apply to a minor’s claim still alive on that date (MI v Grace Christian Reformed Church of Grand Rapids, Docket No. 373022 (Mich Ct App, July 14, 2026), a published decision). A motion for reconsideration in Grace Christian was pending as of September 2026. Under MCR 7.215(C)(2), a published opinion is binding notwithstanding further proceedings, so the holding governs for now, but the posture is not final.

The 2018 legislation included a revival provision, MCL 600.5851b(3), a narrow 90-day window for a specified class of previously barred claims that closed long ago. A Senate package passed the Michigan Senate in May 2025 and remains in House committee, and a further House bill was introduced in June 2026. No revival window is open now.

Why Choose Vahdat Weisman Law?

These cases turn on three questions answered early: which defendants have governmental immunity, what the licensing and investigation files contain, and where MCL 600.5805(6) and MCL 600.5851b leave the claim. Some claims have expired under those provisions, and the dates decide it. We work in a way that does not require you to repeat your account more times than the case requires.

From our Livonia office, we represent survivors throughout Michigan. Founding partners Kara E. Weisman and Jordan S. Vahdat have each been honored as Super Lawyers Rising Stars. Our attorneys are members of the State Bar of Michigan and active in the Michigan Association for Justice. We advance case costs, we work in English and Spanish, and we are available 24/7.

Frequently Asked Questions

• It happened years ago, and no one was ever charged. Can I still bring a claim? Possibly. Michigan’s ten-year period for criminal sexual conduct claims applies whether or not anyone was charged, and for abuse suffered as a minor the period runs to age 28 or three years from when the injury and its causal relationship were discovered or reasonably should have been discovered, whichever is later. The only way to know where yours falls is to have someone look at the dates.
• I do not remember everything. Does that ruin the case? No. These cases are built largely on records: licensing files, investigation reports, staffing and check logs, personnel files, prior complaints. Your account matters, and it does not have to be complete or perfectly sequential to be credible.
• Will my name be public? Michigan courts have procedures that let a party proceed without their name in the public record in appropriate circumstances. It is a question to raise before anything is filed.

About the Author

Kara E. Weisman is a founding partner of Vahdat Weisman Law in Livonia and handles medical malpractice, wrongful death, civil rights, and personal injury claims. She clerked at the Ingham County Probate Court and for the Federal Defender’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan, and is admitted in all Michigan state courts and in the Eastern and Western Districts of Michigan.

Talk to a Michigan Foster Care Abuse Lawyer

If you were abused in a Michigan foster home, group home, or residential facility, call Vahdat Weisman Law at (734) 469-4994 or contact us online. The conversation is free and confidential. Available 24/7, serving all of Michigan, with Spanish-speaking staff. See also our sexual assault victims, child sexual abuse, and school and teacher sexual abuse pages.

Dedicated to Justice. Devoted to You. Winning for Your Future.

Reviewed by Kara E. Weisman, Vahdat Weisman Law. Last reviewed September 2026.

This information is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Every case is unique, and prior results do not guarantee future success.