DHS wants curtailed discovery process

TULSA -- A federal magistrate says he will hand down a ruling soon on a request by the Oklahoma Department of Human Services Wednesday to curtail the pretrial discovery process in a lawsuit that seeks top-to-bottom reform of the state's child welfare system.

The agency has asked that the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Tulsa, be dismissed and claims that a massive pretrial discovery effort is premature.

But attorney Marcia Robinson Lowry, representing the plaintiffs, said asking DHS to produce records it presumably already has and taking a reasonable number of depositions is not asking too much.

The lawsuit, filed Feb. 13, alleges that DHS routinely places children who are in state custody in unsafe situations in which many suffer further abuse and even death.

The plaintiffs are nine children ranging in age from 4 months to 16 years who the lawsuit alleges suffered in DHS placements.

However, attorneys have asked the court to certify a class of about 11,000 children and make the lawsuit a class-action.

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