Los Angeles County Faces Lawsuit Over MacLaren Hall Child Resident Sex Abuse

L.A. County MacLaren Hall Sex Abuse Lawsuit Overview: 

• Who: A lawsuit is being filed against Los Angeles County on behalf of at least 12 former residents of MacLaren Children’s Center, also known as MacLaren Hall. 
• Why: Former residents claim staff members at the facility, as well as other residents, sexually abused them due to a lack of proper supervision. 
• Where: MacLaren Hall operated in the El Monte for more than 40 years.

Los Angeles County faces a complaint alleging it failed to protect at least a dozen individuals from sexual abuse that occured while they were children housed at MacLaren Children’s Center, also known as MacLaren Hall. 

MacLaren Hall was an emergency shelter placement facility used to temporarily house children in between foster care placements that operated out of El Monte, California, for more than 40 years between 1961 and 2003, according to a news release.

The complaint is the first of what is set to be a number of lawsuits filed on behalf of hundreds of former MacLaren Hall residents who claim repeated sexual abuse by staff at the facility. 

“The County of Los Angeles had one responsibility — to protect and care for vulnerable children, but these children were sexually abused by the very people who were supposed to protect them and ignored by other adults when they reported the abuse,” attorney Adam P. Slater of Slater Slater Schulman LLP said in a statement. 

Attorney Says MacLaren Was ‘Literal House of Horrors’

Former MacLaren residents claim Los Angeles County ran the facility like the Los Angeles County Probation Department until 1976, and thus it was managed “more like a prison” than a home for children in need. 

Further, former residents claim staff members — in addition to other residents, due to a lack of proper supervision — subjected children housed at the facility to physical and sexual abuse, according to the release.

“It was a literal house of horrors for the children who were brought there, often taken from an abusive home only to be abused at MacLaren,” Slater said. 

Control over MacLaren Hall was transferred from the county probation department to the Department of Social Services in 1976 after reports came out that children at the facility were being mistreated.

Five MacLaren Hall employees were arrested in 1984 after it was discovered they had sexually abused children at the facility and sold them drugs, according to the release. 

MacLaren Hall was finally shut down in 2003 following a class action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. 

Earlier this month, a child advocacy think-tank determined after a two-year investigation that Catholic sex abuse prevention programs put in place by the church are “incomplete” and “inconsistent.” 

Were you sexually abused while a resident at MacLaren Hall Children’s Center? You may qualify to join a MacLaren Hall sex abuse lawsuit investigation. 

The plaintiffs are represented by Adam P. Slater and James W. Lewis of Slater Slater Schulman. 

Read About More Class Action Lawsuits & Class Action Settlements:

• Catholic Church Sex Abuse Scandal Lawsuit Investigation
• California Sex Abuse and Assault Lawsuit Claim Review
• Judge: James Franco Sexual Exploitation Settlement Must Be Revised
• Catholic Churches in New Jersey Set Up Compensation Fund for Survivors of Sexual Abuse