If you were a foster child examined by Dr. Patrick Clyne, or his patient in Watsonville, we believe you.

For fifteen years he was the doctor Santa Clara County sent its foster children to. Valley Medical Center, the Children's Shelter clinic, and before that his own licensed foster home. The County let him go in March 2011; he kept practicing in Watsonville until 2019. On June 13, 2025 the Medical Board of California accepted the surrender of his licence, and since then nine former foster children have gone to court. He has never been charged with a crime. If some part of an exam with him has stayed with you, this page was written for you.

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6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.

Looking for the page about the County? Santa Clara County foster care survivors.

This applies to you no matter what

You thought it was a normal exam. So did the foster mother who, the complaint says, was told twice in July 2009 that Santa Clara County required it. Children of eight and nine don't know what a well-child check is supposed to include.
You only ever saw him the one time. That's true of children in the Board's accusation too, a nine-year-old on January 24, 2014, an eight-year-old on May 7, 2018, one visit each. It is enough to start.
You told someone and nothing happened. A County social worker is quoted in the May 2026 complaint admitting, two years after a foster mother reported him, that she never passed it on 'because he's a very well respected doctor.' An allegation, but it is in a filed pleading, and it is what a lawyer needs to hear from you.
You were his patient in Watsonville, not a foster child at all. The Medical Board's case was built largely on children seen at Pediatric Medical Group of Watsonville between 2014 and 2019. Different defendant, same doctor.
You were very small. One plaintiff was his patient from birth to about age two. Not having words for it then does not count against you now.
You're a parent, a former foster parent, a sibling, asking for someone who can't yet. Reach out anyway.

Dr. Patrick Clyne: what the public record says, and when

We didn't write any of this. It comes from the Medical Board of California's own order, from a complaint filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court, and from the reporters who have followed this since 2001; every line links to where we found it. Clyne has never been charged with a crime; a grand jury returned no indictment, a district attorney declined, and he has denied everything. The licence surrender is a surrender, made without admitting the charges. Everything from a civil complaint is an allegation.

February 1996

According to the complaint filed in May 2026, Santa Clara County received a written Unusual Incident Report about a foster boy placed in Clyne's licensed foster home, in which Clyne himself described handling the child's genitals after an incident with an electric massager. The complaint alleges the County opened no licensing investigation and interviewed no child in the home. The same year, it made him its chief pediatrician for children in foster care. Complaint, No. 26CV493431 (PDF).

November 2001 – 2002

Four boys who had lived in or near his home, Kyle, Max, Dean and Jeffrey, disclosed abuse, and police investigated. Two testified before a criminal grand jury in 2002. No indictment was returned, 'despite recommendations by local police that charges be filed.' The 2026 complaint quotes the County's own licensing investigator testifying he was 'directed to hold off' on Clyne, the only time in 200 to 250 investigations. Clyne kept his County roles. The Imprint, June 7, 2020.

February – March 2011

Santa Clara County prosecutors put Clyne on a list of expert witnesses whose credibility could be challenged: 'there is substantial evidence that Dr. Clyne committed multiple crimes involving moral turpitude, specifically sexual assault.' The next month the County fired him. Between 2009 and 2011, the Chronicle reported, ten foster children he had examined at the County children's shelter, some as young as eight, had told police about their exams. No charge followed. San Francisco Chronicle, April 14, 2019.

2014

The California Department of Social Services moved to bar Clyne from ever again being a licensed foster parent or working with children in state-licensed facilities. By then he was in private practice at Pediatric Medical Group of Watsonville, in Freedom, seeing mostly low-income families. The Imprint, May 16, 2025.

February 19, 2021

The California Attorney General, for the Medical Board, filed an accusation against Clyne's licence: six children, ages six to sixteen, seen at his Watsonville practice between 2014 and 2019, among them a nine-year-old whose mother was told he needed to put his fingers in her vagina to examine her stomach. It also charged him with mishandling ADHD stimulant prescriptions. He was 59. The Imprint, February 23, 2021.

June 13, 2025

The Medical Board of California's Decision in Case No. 800-2018-048871 took effect: Physician's and Surgeon's Certificate G 79053 surrendered and accepted, discipline on his record. He signed on May 9, 2025, agreeing the Board 'could establish a factual basis for the charges' while admitting none; if he ever asks for the licence back, every charge is deemed true. The Fourth Amended Accusation behind it, filed January 4, 2023, charged gross negligence and repeated negligent acts toward child patients from 1999 to 2018 and, for one eight-year-old girl examined on April 22, 2003, sexual misconduct under Business and Professions Code section 726: a hand examination of her genitals with 'no medical reason' and no chaperone who could see. Medical Board Decision and Accusation (PDF).

November 2025 – January 2026

Santa Clara County paid $5.5 million to settle the suit of Kyle R., placed in Clyne's foster home in the mid-1990s at age eight and later adopted by him; he had filed in 2020. A settlement is not a finding of liability, and we don't say it is. The same report noted a second suit, filed in December 2025 by Slater Slater Schulman for two men, John Roe I.B. and John Roe L.G., alleging abuse between 1998 and 2008. The County did not comment. The Imprint, January 14, 2026.

May 8, 2026

Seven people, J.M., K.G., R.S., K.M., A.O., S.P. and R.P., sued in Santa Clara County Superior Court, No. 26CV493431, naming the County of Santa Clara, its former DFCS deputy director Ken Borelli, and Clyne. They were eight to ten years old, the complaint says, when he examined them at County clinics, Valley Medical Center settings and the Children's Shelter clinic between 2001 and 2011. Clyne could not be reached; the County did not return calls. He has still never been charged: the Santa Cruz County District Attorney declined in 2019 after a joint Medical Board and Watsonville police investigation. The Imprint, May 15, 2026.

We checked this on September 13, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from May 8, 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who answers for what Dr. Clyne is accused of

Clyne is a defendant in both pending suits, but he is in his mid-sixties, retired, without a licence, and no plaintiff is counting on him alone. For anyone he saw as a foster child between 1996 and March 2011, the defendant that matters is the County of Santa Clara. It licensed his foster home, employed him at Valley Medical Center and the Children's Shelter clinic, used him as an expert witness, and, the May 2026 complaint alleges, told its own investigator to stand down in 2001 and kept him ten more years. The legal words are negligent supervision and retention, and failure to perform a mandatory duty. The plain words: the County was the parent, and it chose the doctor. That is the case the County paid $5.5 million on in November 2025 and is now defending against seven more plaintiffs. There is a separate page about the County, linked below; one call covers both.

Two things about a county defendant that a lawyer will walk you through. There are no punitive damages against a public entity in California (Government Code 818), and the complaint says so itself. But there is no cap on what a jury can award for a claim like this, and, for childhood sexual abuse, no government claim form to file first, whatever year it happened. The door is the courthouse.

If he was your pediatrician in Watsonville, 2011 to 2019, the County had nothing to do with it. The place was Pediatric Medical Group of Watsonville, a private practice on Green Valley Road in Freedom; it is the address on the Board's accusation, and the six children that accusation describes from 2014 to 2019 were his patients there. As of this writing no filed complaint naming that practice is cited on this page. Whether it belongs on one is the question a lawyer asks first. Say Watsonville in the questions above and the call starts there.

Your deadline: the California statute of limitations for what happened when you were a child

Until you turn 40, or five years from the day you connected what happened to the harm it did, whichever comes later. That is California's rule for anyone abused as a minor before 2024, Code of Civil Procedure section 340.11, and it is why the questions above ask your birth year, not the year of the visit. Born in 1987 or later and the door is open on age alone; that covers nearly everyone he saw at a County clinic in the 2000s and everyone he saw in Watsonville. Born before 1987, and it turns on discovery, and on one more thing: past 40, a claim against an institution needs a showing that it knew, or had reason to know, and failed to act, plus certificates of merit. The complaint against the County pleads that knowledge in detail, but pleading is not proving. A lawyer decides, and we don't promise the answer.

One thing that used to trip people up no longer does. A childhood sexual abuse claim does not have to be presented to the County first, for conduct in any year (Government Code 905(m); Code of Civil Procedure 340.11(s)). No six-month claim form, no bar for having missed one. The 2020 to 2022 revival window has closed, but if you are under 40 you never needed it. If you're wondering where you land: a 2000s clinic exam, almost certainly still in time. Watsonville, in time. The foster home in the mid-1990s is where it gets tighter, and even there, Kyle R. was placed in that home in the mid-1990s, filed in 2020, and the County paid him in November 2025. Ask; the asking is free.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You never told anyone. The seven who sued in May 2026 were describing exams from fifteen to twenty-five years before.
You don't remember his name, only that it was the foster-care doctor at the hospital or at the shelter, or the pediatrician on Green Valley Road. That is enough to start.
You told a social worker, a foster parent, a police officer, and nothing happened. Say so. On the County side, that is the heart of the case.
You went back to him, or your family did, for years. Going back is not consent to anything.
Your dependency file, or a record you picked up later, is not clean. It has no bearing here.
You live in Nevada, or anywhere else now. The cases are filed in San Jose; you don't have to live there.

Where he was

The foster-care pediatric clinic at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, 751 South Bascom Avenue, San Jose, where he was the County's chief pediatrician for children in foster care from 1996 until March 2011. The Santa Clara County Children's Shelter clinic on Union Avenue in San Jose, where the complaint places a July 29, 2009 exam. His own County-licensed foster family home, roughly December 1994 to March 2007, as a placement. Then Pediatric Medical Group of Watsonville, 222 Green Valley Road, Freedom, the address on the Board's accusation, from 2011 to 2019. The County side is covered in more depth on the Santa Clara County foster care page (/santa-clara-county-foster-care-survivors). Somewhere else? Tell us anyway.

Questions people are asking

Who is Dr. Patrick Clyne?

A pediatrician licensed in California in June 1994. From 1996 to March 2011 he was Santa Clara County's chief pediatrician for children in foster care, at Valley Medical Center and the Children's Shelter clinic, and for part of that time a County-licensed foster parent himself. After the County fired him he practiced at Pediatric Medical Group of Watsonville until 2019, and on June 13, 2025 the Medical Board of California's acceptance of his licence surrender took effect.

Has Dr. Clyne ever been arrested, or convicted of anything?

No, and that surprises people. Not arrested, not charged, not once. Two boys testified to a grand jury in 2002; it returned no indictment. In 2019 the Santa Cruz County District Attorney, after a joint Medical Board and Watsonville police investigation, declined too. What exists is a Medical Board order accepting the surrender of his licence, two pending civil suits, and a settlement paid by the County. A civil case does not need a criminal one.

Did Dr. Clyne admit anything when he gave up his licence?

No. The stipulation he signed on May 9, 2025 says he agrees the Board 'could establish a factual basis for the charges' and gives up his right to contest them; it is not an admission, and we don't call it one. It does say that if he ever petitions to get the licence back, every charge in the accusation is deemed true.

Can I still sue Dr. Clyne?

Nine former foster children have, in two suits filed since December 2025, and both also name Santa Clara County. Whether you can depends mostly on when you were born and what happened, which is what the questions above sort out. A Watsonville patient's defendant question is different; a lawyer answers it on the first call.

How much does a sexual abuse lawyer cost?

Here, nothing. Every case is on contingency. The lawyer is paid only out of what is recovered, and if nothing is recovered you owe nothing. Not for the call, not for the review, not for the case.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed California attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.