What happened to you in Santa Clara County foster care was not okay.

The County took you out of one home because it wasn't safe, then sent you to its own doctor. Seven people who were foster children in the 2000s now say, in a complaint filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court, that the doctor was Patrick Clyne, that he hurt them during exams at Valley Medical Center and the Children's Shelter clinic, and that the County had been warned about him in 1996 and 2001 and told its own investigator to stand down. If you were a foster child seen at a County clinic between 1996 and March 2011, or placed in his home, this is about you.

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

The doctor was Patrick Clyne? There is a page about him, too.

This applies to you no matter what

You thought it was a medical exam. That is exactly what the complaint describes: children of eight, nine, ten, told to undress and squat, told it was required, in an exam room at a County clinic. The people already in the case believed it was medicine too.
A foster parent took you, and the foster parent was told the County required it. One foster mother says in the filing that she was told, twice, that Santa Clara County mandated the exam. She reported it the same day. Nothing came of it for two years.
You were only at the Children's Shelter a few days, or you only saw the doctor once. The complaint describes single visits.
You told a social worker and it went nowhere. In the filing, a social worker is quoted admitting, in June 2011, that she never passed on a 2009 report 'because he's a very well respected doctor.' That sentence is an allegation, but it is in the record.
You were very small. One plaintiff was seen by him from birth to about age two. Not having the words for it then does not count against you now.
You're a former foster parent, a sibling, a partner, asking for someone who can't yet. Reach out anyway.

The Santa Clara County foster-care lawsuits: what the public record says, and when

None of this is ours. It comes from the complaint filed against the County of Santa Clara in May 2026, from the Medical Board of California's own order, and from the reporters who have followed this since 2001; every line links to where we found it. The civil complaints are allegations; the County has not admitted liability and no court has ruled. Dr. Clyne has never been criminally charged, and we say so plainly. The complaint names Valley Medical Center settings, the Children's Shelter clinic, County clinics and Clyne's County-licensed foster home. The Receiving Center that replaced the shelter on October 1, 2009 is listed on this page because the same County department ran it while he was still the County's pediatrician; no separate record on it is cited here.

February 1996

According to the complaint, the County received a written Unusual Incident Report about a foster child placed in Clyne's licensed foster home, in which Clyne himself described handling the boy's genitals after an incident with an electric massager. The complaint alleges the County never opened the licensing investigation its own rules required and interviewed no child in the home. Complaint, No. 26CV493431 (PDF).

November 2001 – 2002

Four boys, Kyle, Max, Dean and Jeffrey, disclosed abuse, the complaint says, and the County's own referral named Clyne as the alleged perpetrator. The complaint quotes the County's licensing investigator, Steven Katz, testifying that he was 'directed to hold off,' the only time in 200 to 250 investigations, and that the manager who dictated it was Ken Borelli. Two boys testified before a criminal grand jury in 2002; no indictment was returned. Clyne kept his County roles for nine more years. The Imprint, June 2020.

February – March 2011

Prosecutors listed Clyne as an expert witness whose credibility could be challenged, citing 'substantial evidence that Dr. Clyne committed multiple crimes involving moral turpitude, specifically sexual assault.' In March 2011 the County fired him from Valley Medical Center, fifteen years after making him its chief pediatrician for children in foster care. By then, the Chronicle reported, ten children aged eight to eleven had told police about exams at the Children's Shelter between 2009 and 2011. County Executive Jeff Smith, in 2019: 'it surprised me nothing more was done and that he was still practicing in the region.' San Francisco Chronicle, April 14, 2019.

July 2014

The California Department of Social Services moved to bar Clyne from ever again being a foster parent or having contact with children in licensed care, alleging he had held a foster family home licence from about December 1994 to about March 2007. He was by then in private practice in Watsonville. The Imprint, May 2025.

June 13, 2025

His licence ended here. The charges, in a Fourth Amended Accusation filed January 4, 2023, were gross negligence and repeated negligent acts toward child patients; for one girl, eight when he examined her in April 2003, the charge was sexual misconduct under Business and Professions Code 726. On May 9, 2025 he signed a surrender of certificate G 79053, his physician's and surgeon's certificate, and the Medical Board of California accepted it in Case No. 800-2018-048871, effective June 13, 2025. He admitted nothing. He did agree the Board could have proved the charges, and to one catch: ask for the licence back, ever, and every allegation is deemed true. Still no crime charged, then or since. Medical Board Decision and Accusation (PDF).

November 2025 – January 2026

Santa Clara County paid $5.5 million to settle Kyle R.'s suit. He'd been placed in Clyne's foster home as a boy in the mid-1990s, was later adopted by him, and 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., filed suit in Santa Clara County Superior Court, No. 26CV493431, against the County of Santa Clara 'on its own behalf and on behalf of its departments, including but not limited to Family and Children's Services,' Ken Borelli and Patrick Clyne. Four causes of action: childhood sexual assault and sexual battery; negligent hiring, supervision and retention; failure to perform a mandatory duty (Government Code 815.6); and negligence. The abuse alleged runs from 2001 to 2011 at County clinics, Valley Medical Center settings and the Children's Shelter clinic; one visit is dated July 29, 2009. The County did not return requests for comment. 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 can be held responsible in a Santa Clara County foster-care lawsuit

The County of Santa Clara. Not a contractor. Not some hospital company. The County itself: its Social Services Agency and its Department of Family and Children's Services placed the children, licensed the foster homes and ran the Children's Shelter, and Valley Medical Center is the County's own hospital. That's who the May 2026 complaint names first, and who paid the $5.5 million in November 2025. The legal theory has a long name, negligent supervision and retention, plus failing to do what state licensing rules made mandatory. Strip the jargon off and it comes to this: the County was the parent. It chose the doctor, told foster parents he was safe, and, the complaint alleges, kept saying so for ten years after its own files said otherwise.

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

Individuals are named too: Ken Borelli, who the complaint says was the Emergency Response program manager who ordered the 2001 stand-down and later became Deputy Director of DFCS, and Clyne himself. Nobody has ever charged Clyne with a crime, and we won't pretend otherwise; a grand jury heard testimony in 2002 and didn't indict, and in 2019 the Santa Cruz County District Attorney looked at it and declined. That doesn't close a civil case. It never has. There is a separate page about him, linked below, and one call covers both.

Your deadline: the California statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse in county foster care

Until you turn 40, or five years from the day you connected what happened to the harm it did, whichever is later. That is California's rule for anyone abused as a minor before 2024, Code of Civil Procedure 340.11, and it is why we ask your birth year. Born in 1987 or later and the door is open on age alone; every one of the seven people who sued in May 2026 was a child in the 2000s, so that is most of the people this page is for. Born before 1987 and it turns on discovery, and on showing the County knew or had reason to know, which the complaint pleads in detail. That is a conversation with a lawyer, not a date on a calendar, and we don't promise the answer.

Because the defendant is a county, one more thing matters and it cuts in your favor. 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 is closed, but you don't need it if you are under 40. What a public defendant does take off the table is punitive damages; the compensatory side has no cap.

Plainly: if you were a foster child seen at a County clinic in the 2000s, you almost certainly still have time. If it was the late 1990s, you very likely do. If it was Clyne's foster home in the mid-1990s, it is closer, and the man who settled in November 2025 is proof the older claims can still be brought. Either way it is one call, and the call is free.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You never told anyone. Neither did most of the people now in the case; the seven who sued in 2026 were describing exams from fifteen to twenty-five years earlier.
You don't remember the doctor's name, only that it was the foster-care doctor, at the hospital or at the shelter. That is enough to start.
You told a social worker, a foster parent, a police officer, and nothing happened. Say so. It is the heart of the case against the County.
You were adopted out of the system, or left it years ago. The claim is about what happened while the County was responsible for you.
Your dependency file, or your juvenile record, is not clean. It has no bearing here.
You live in Nevada, or anywhere else now. The case is filed in San Jose; you don't have to live there.

Facilities covered

The foster-care pediatric clinic at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, 751 South Bascom Avenue, San Jose, where the County's chief pediatrician for children in foster care saw patients from 1996 until March 2011. The Santa Clara County Children's Shelter clinic, 4525 Union Avenue, San Jose, five exam rooms and two doctors on weekday afternoons; the shelter's residential side ended on October 1, 2009 and the site became the County's Receiving Center, its clinic staffed by Valley Medical Center doctors (the center later moved, and closed on December 31, 2019). Dr. Clyne's County-licensed foster family home, as a placement, roughly December 1994 to March 2007. His later private practice, Pediatric Medical Group of Watsonville in Freedom, was not a County facility; it is covered on the Dr. Patrick Clyne page (/dr-patrick-clyne). A different Santa Clara County placement, clinic or group home? Answer the questions and say where.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue Santa Clara County for what happened in foster care?

Nine people have, in two suits filed since December 2025, and one more settled with the County for $5.5 million before that. Whether you can depends mostly on when you were born and what happened, which is what the questions above sort out. There is no county claim form to file first; the case goes straight to Santa Clara County Superior Court.

Did Dr. Patrick Clyne ever get arrested, or convicted of anything?

No, neither. No criminal charge, ever; the grand jury and the district attorney are in the record above. What exists is a Medical Board of California order, effective June 13, 2025, accepting the surrender of his licence, plus two civil suits still pending and one settlement. You don't need a criminal case to bring a civil one, and none of these plaintiffs had one.

Has Santa Clara County admitted it covered up abuse by Dr. Clyne?

No. The County paid $5.5 million to one former foster child in November 2025, and a settlement is not an admission. It has not answered the May 2026 complaint in court as of this writing and has not commented to reporters. The stand-down order, the 1996 report and the social worker's admission are allegations in that complaint, and nothing on this page says a court has found them true.

I was a Santa Clara County foster kid in the 1990s, am I too late?

Probably not, if you were born in 1987 or later, which covers most children who were in the system in the late 1990s. Born earlier and it turns on when you understood the harm, and on what the County knew, which is a one-call question for a lawyer. Kyle R. was in Clyne's foster home in the mid-1990s and didn't file until 2020. The County settled with him anyway, in 2025.

What does a sexual abuse lawyer cost, honestly?

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.