By all appearances, Feb.
23, 2014, was shaping up to be a normal and relaxing
Sunday for the Doughty family, as Scott Doughty of
Lenoir City was gearing up to watch the Daytona 500,
while his 13-year-old daughter said she was headed to
her bedroom to take nap after making a remark about her
favorite driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“She said, ‘My guy’s gonna win today’,” Scott said, recalling one of the last conversations he had with his daughter.
After walking by the
bedroom three times that afternoon to check on his
daughter, Scott noticed on the fourth pass that she
hadn’t moved from her spot, although the girl
normally switches positions frequently during sleep.
A closer investigation revealed that she wasn’t
breathing. Scott and his son attempted to revive the
girl with cardiopulmonary resuscitation to no avail.
“Knowing what I saw
that day, knowing what it done to me, I can’t even
fathom the effect that it would have had on a
15-year-old boy trying to do CPR on his sister
unsuccessfully,” Doughty said, noting that police
later hypothesized the girl died from a practice
known as “dusting,” or getting high off compressed
air.
On March 6, six days
after the burial ceremony, Doughty was summoned to a
meeting at Lenoir City High School with Tennessee
Department of Children’s Services officials that
resulted in his son’s removal from the home on
claims that Doughty had abused his child.
After having limited
time to see his son throughout the next year,
Doughty filed a lawsuit March 9 in U.S. District
Court claiming DCS wrongfully removed his son from
the home, charging that the state had no court order
or legal authority to take such action.
During the meeting at
the school a year earlier, Doughty’s son claimed his
father was violent, bipolar and had not been taking
his medications, according to the suit. The meeting
was attended by DCS workers and lawsuit defendants
Bailee Welch, Shannon Forrester and Kristy Bledsoe,
DCS attorney Brandon Pelizzari, family members of
Doughty and a boyfriend of Scott’s daughter.
His son alleged to DCS
officials that Doughty had “thrown him across the
room and punched him in the stomach,” Welch was
quoted as saying in the suit.
“When was I supposed to
have done this?” Doughty asked.
“A year or so ago. He
couldn’t say for sure,” Welch said.
Doughty, who filed the
lawsuit on a pro se basis, is requesting $100,000
for expenditures related to services, medications
and treatment for psychological therapy stemming
from “extreme depression, pain and suffering and
contributing to complications of the diagnosis of
PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) due to the
actions taken by all defendants” in the case. He is
also requesting $10 million in punitive damages.
Marcy Martin, team
coordinator with the DCS office in Lenoir City,
would not comment on the case. When asked whether
the three DCS employees named in the suit were still
employed at her office, she deferred comment to Rob
Johnson, DCS director of communications in
Nashville.
Johnson said in an
email correspondence that Welch resigned from the
office effective July 19, 2014. Bledsoe and
Forrester are still actively employed with DCS.
Johnson said the Tennessee Attorney General’s office
will represent DCS in the case.
“I know about that
issue, but I can’t say anything,” Johnson said about
the case. “The department can’t comment.”
Harlow Sumerford,
communications director with the AG’s office, did
not provide further details. “Our office is aware of
the lawsuit, but no court date has been set,”
Sumerford said.
During an interview
about the lawsuit in late April, Doughty said DCS
did not have any “exigent circumstances” that would
warrant a removal of his son from the home, and the
agency did not obtain a court order in pursuing the
action.
“She took my child, and
in violation or complete denial or indifference to
the DCS requirement, she took him and she hid him
out,” Doughty said about Welch. “She didn’t take him
to the emergency room. She didn’t seek any kind of
emergency care whatsoever.”
Welch acted only on
“verbal accusations” against Doughty without
evidence of physical abuse, according to the
lawsuit.
Welch’s “failure to not
have the child evaluated or treated for physical
injury by any medical personnel whatsoever, failure
to call the police nor any other law enforcement
agencies of any kind to intervene in a crisis
situation, all support the fact that DCS caseworker
Welch acted soley (sic) upon ‘verbal,’ unfounded,
unsubstantiated allegations made by CD against his
father,” the lawsuit charges.
Doughty said he and his
son hadn’t experienced relationship problems in the
days leading up to the DCS action, noting that they
were both in family therapy at Cherokee Health
Systems. He said based on counsel from his
psychologist, his son may not have fully accepted or
come to terms with his sister’s untimely death.
“And I represent the
end of the road, the reality, because I was there
that day,” Doughty said.
After further
discussion during the meeting at the high school
last year, all parties eventually agreed to place
the boy in the custody of Maripat Gettelfinger, a
psychologist at the school, whose son was best
friends with the child. Doughty’s son, however,
threatened to run away if he was not sent to the
home of Scott’s ex-wife, Whitney Teffeteller, who
lived in Seymour at the time.
Later on the night of
March 6, Welch, accompanied by a Roane County
Sheriff’s deputy, came to the home of Doughty’s
mother requesting the boy’s belongings, according to
the lawsuit. When asked about the boy’s location,
Welch reportedly said, “He’s at Whitney’s house. He
said if we put him anywhere else he’d run if we
didn’t let him stay there, and we can’t have him
threatening that.”
Doughty said his son
stayed with Teffeteller from early March 2014
through Dec. 22, and since that date the boy has
lived with his mother, Jacqui Stephens, in the city
of Loudon. Doughty said since late December, he has
seen his son only a few times — four hours on
Christmas Day and on three other visits through late
April.
As of Tuesday, DCS has
not provided an answer to Doughty’s various
complaints in the suit.
Doughty said he thought
DCS will file a motion for summary judgment on the
basis of immunity that he anticipates will be
denied, which will be followed by a settlement
conference. If litigation goes beyond that stage, a
hearing on pre-trial motions and a jury selection
will ensue.
“This case is not about
the money,” Doughty said. “... You don’t have any
other recourse other than to take these people to
court.”
He said that by filing
the suit, he was not planning to pursue a settlement
arrangement with DCS.
“As far as my lawsuit,
to be honest with you, I’d just as soon not even
enter into negotiations to settle,” Doughty said.
“This is a slam dunk, and I want them to be held
accountable for what they done. They need to be held
accountable for what they’ve done.”