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Published: April 15, 2008

“Power to devastate and destroy families”

Parents whose sons were wrongly removed from their home want change in laws protecting social workers from lawsuits

A Redlands couple is challenging federal and state laws granting immunity from civil suits to social workers and other government officials who investigate allegations of child abuse.

Two years ago, Kirk and Leslie Udvardi had their two sons, Matthew (now 18) and Abram (now 13) taken by social workers and placed in foster care because doctors at Loma Linda University claimed that Leslie suffered from Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy – a disorder in which a parent lies about a child’s illness or injures a child in order to get attention from doctors.

Both the Udvardi children and their sister, Esther, 8, have had serious health problems since infancy – infections, trouble holding down food, a condition in which one could stop breathing while asleep, and, in Esther’s case, blindness.

The Udvardis began taking their children to the pediatrics teaching department at Loma Linda, but, after more than 400 visits, doctors could not determine the cause of the children’s ailments. In 2005, Leslie Udvardi began her own investigation, which led her to a support group for sufferers of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome – a genetic disorder that Leslie herself has. Further research led Leslie to Chiari Malformation, a head condition where the cerebellum presses so tightly against the back of the skull that portions of the brain and upper spinal cord are pushed down into the neck.

Loma Linda doctors told Leslie Udvardi they found no connection between her children’s symptoms and either Ehlers-Danlos or Chiari. Leslie then found the Chiari Institute in Great Neck, New York, which specializes in the disease. When doctors there saw the Udvardi children’s X-rays and medical records, they determined they had Ehlers-Danlos. (They later determined that the children had a Chiari-like condition that would not require surgery but which accounted for their symptoms.)

After the Udvardis asked Loma Linda for a referral to the Chiari Institute, they received their first visit from San Bernardino County children’s services. Social workers alleged Leslie had Munchausen condition and later accused her of abuse. She, claimed social workers, was going to force her children to undergo a spinal surgery that was both painful and unnecessary.

Following this first visit, social workers removed the Udvardi boys from school and placed them in foster care. Kirk Udvardi said two social workers tried to get him to testify against his wife. He refused. A Juvenile Court judge let the boys return home after six days in foster care. The judge ruled that a court may not question a parent for accepting medical advice from one doctor rather than another. He refused the county’s request to have the children permanently removed from their parents.

The Udvardis are challenging the broad immunity granted social workers. San Bernardino County supervising deputy counsel Michael Markel told the Riverside Press-Enterprise that a social worker’s liability, like that of police officers, is limited; they are not liable as long as they think their conduct is lawful. To remove the immunity, said Markel, "would be tying the hands of social workers.”

Leslie Udvardi has written more than 100 letters to state and federal legislators in an effort to get the law changed, but so far has received little response, the newspaper reported.

"Our judicial system has become grossly iniquitous, as medical professionals responsible for unbiased and honest evaluations have the power to devastate and destroy families with no legal accountability," said one of Leslie Udvardi’s letters, the Press-Enterprise reported.

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