California Social Workers 'Didn't know' Perjury/Lying in Court Is Illegal Per Defense Lawyers

W

WhatInThe

SF VIP
California was sued over the improper or illegal removal of a child from a home. They falsified evidence and lied in court. They eventually lost a multi million dollar lawsuit. The defense in the appeal says the social workers 'didn't know' things like perjury/lying was illegal.

http://www.ocweekly.com/news/judges...s-didnt-know-lying-in-court-was-wrong-7774616

Some background is even more disturbing because at least two of the social workers in the case/lawsuit were promoted and train other employees. The social workers apparently lied in several court appearances along with falsifying evidence. The case/lawsuit was won on constitutional grounds basically because parental rights were violated.

http://www.ocregister.com/2011/04/25/lying-social-worker-promoted-now-trains-others/
 

Robusta said:
In my 60 plus years of experience in dealing with Law Enforcement, Social Service Agencies and local zoning boards, lying by the agencies is SOP!
Click to expand...

Oh yeah. There has been testalying for decades. It's not just government workers. Alot of employees in the private sector lie their way through their careers and jobs. Some have done it or seen it done so often they don't think twice about it. It's an institutional problem. Many wrongfully ASSume if the management tolerates and/or endorses a practice it must be ok even if its illegal or unethical. They give management too much credit

In the private sector lying not only leads to legal problems but financial & policy decisions are affected by employees lying on their reports or data that is used for future planning.

One of the things I observed over the decades besides people always trying to game the system is most don't differentiate between practice, policy, the law and ethics-they are all different things but they are ignored or confused to rationalize their behavior.
 

Last edited:
Robusta said:
In my 60 plus years of experience in dealing with Law Enforcement, Social Service Agencies and local zoning boards, lying by the agencies is SOP!
Click to expand...
Don't doubt you for a minute. As Ricky Ricardo might say, "as a species we've got some 'splaning to do".

All kidding aside, what I noticed in my career was that the dishonesty and unethical behavior somewhat mirrored what we saw in the leadership of our country. It was kind of a trickle down effect. Nowadays with the political process we use with paid political spies/saboteurs and nothing being off limits, I don't think the kind of people we would like would put up with that. So this is the world we live in where who knows what the truth really is because we don't likely ever hear it. LOL
 
From childhood, anymore, there are no consequences for untruthfulness. If a child lies in school, his/her parents blame it on the teachers/other kids/other kids parents/television/etc. Employees call in sick when they want a day to play golf or go fishing. "I've earned that sick leave." Employers tell employees if they work long hours with little pay they will be promoted soon... and they aren't. Marriages don't last due to lies and cheating, but no one seems to care. Move on and move in with another and start the cycle all over. The lack of truthfulness in our current culture is prevalent from the poor to the wealthy, from the worker to the government officials, from the blue collar worker to the white collar worker. Sad.......
 
Grumpy Ol' Man said:
From childhood, anymore, there are no consequences for untruthfulness. If a child lies in school, his/her parents blame it on the teachers/other kids/other kids parents/television/etc. Employees call in sick when they want a day to play golf or go fishing. "I've earned that sick leave." Employers tell employees if they work long hours with little pay they will be promoted soon... and they aren't. Marriages don't last due to lies and cheating, but no one seems to care. Move on and move in with another and start the cycle all over. The lack of truthfulness in our current culture is prevalent from the poor to the wealthy, from the worker to the government officials, from the blue collar worker to the white collar worker. Sad.......
Click to expand...

The problem is in the workplace management becomes the parent and if they tolerate lying that's what their employees will do. But yes too many in society are in a culture or environment where lying is tolerated.
 
I don't know if the culture is different here in the UK, but I was a social worker for a number of years before I was promoted to my proper level of incompetency! : )

I was a child protection case worker for about 12 of those years and was in Court every few months with child care issues. I would never have dreamt of making anything up! In fact I was terrified of the courts and the lawyers because of the way they would twist what you said - especially if a case was 'borderline'. When we went to High Court - a rare event when the case was very serious - my knees would literally be shaking!
 
Wintermint said:
I don't know if the culture is different here in the UK, but I was a social worker for a number of years before I was promoted to my proper level of incompetency! : )

I was a child protection case worker for about 12 of those years and was in Court every few months with child care issues. I would never have dreamt of making anything up! In fact I was terrified of the courts and the lawyers because of the way they would twist what you said - especially if a case was 'borderline'. When we went to High Court - a rare event when the case was very serious - my knees would literally be shaking!
Click to expand...

That's exactly how one should take a court appearance & testimony.

I don't know which is worse lying in court with the possible criminal penalties for perjury/lying or the fact the someone has complete disregard for the truth which the end goal of court testimony. Testimony is supposed to document facts, not fabrications.

Not only did these social workers lie in court they would've had to have been falsifying paperwork at numerous steps of process. For what ever reason it either turned personal-"I'll show you who's boss" or it's business as usual. Probably a combination of both.
 
-"I'll show you who's boss"....... is an attitude of ego, a person with it who is a position of power can't be reasoned with and they scare the heck outta me--you have to practically bow to them, speak words of admiration and just maybe they'll choose the correct decision to make convincing themselves they made that decision because of their great wisdom. :p
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top