Committee advances 'Patterson's Law' to require medical expertise in child-abuse probes

Senators on the Committee on Judiciary voted to report favorably CS/CS/SB 304, known in testimony as “Patterson's Law,” a bill that would require that medical expertise be incorporated into some child-protective investigations to reduce removals based on conditions later shown to be medical.

Sponsor Senator Alexis Sharif, presenting the bill, said it is meant to prevent children with preexisting genetic or metabolic disorders—from conditions she named, including rickets, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and osteogenesis imperfecta—from being wrongly separated from families during initial abuse inquiries. "This bill ensures that children with preexisting genetic conditions are not wrongly separated from their families during the child abuse investigations," Senator Sharif said as she opened the explanation.

The bill and a substitute amendment drew extended public testimony from families who said their children were removed after early clinical judgments that later, more-specialized testing and expert review showed were medical in origin. Michael Patterson, identified in testimony as the father whose case gave the bill its popular name, said the current process left his family separated for years. "This bill protects innocent families from devastating effects of misdiagnosed medical condition in child abuse investigations," he told the committee. His wife, Tasha Patterson, described genetic testing and other specialty opinions that, she said, ultimately documented Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and metabolic bone disease in their children and said those findings post-dated the family’s removal and long litigation.

The committee adopted a substitute amendment (barcode 730156) offered by the sponsor that removed a section requiring initial mandatory reporters—physicians, medical examiners, nurses and certain hospital personnel—to provide the analysis used to rule out differential diagnoses. Senator Sharif described the deletion as a measure to avoid imposing unintended burdens on busy initial reporters. After one person on the record waived closing, committee members adopted the substitute amendment by voice vote; the transcript records no roll-call objections.

Witnesses included medical and legal professionals who urged speedier access to second opinions during investigatory stages. Octavia Brown, an attorney who previously worked for the Department of Children and Families and in dependency defense, said in committee testimony that she and retained experts had been able to secure alternative medical opinions within 60 to 90 days that would have prevented removal in some cases, but that families frequently lacked time or access to obtain them. "Time is of the essence during the investigatory phase," Brown said.

Senator Gates raised a question about the bill’s allocation of cost and access to second opinions. Senator Sharif replied that the bill’s language preserves DCF’s involvement and that the substitute left in a provision permitting parents to pay for additional testing when DCF or the family's insurer does not cover it. "If they're not allowed to have it paid for under DCF then the parents would have the ability to provide that and pay for themselves," Sharif said in closing.

After debate and public testimony, the committee reported the bill favorably for further consideration. The transcript shows the committee adopted the substitute amendment and then reported CS/CS/SB 304 favorably; detailed vote rolls for the recorded roll call are noted in the transcript but individual vote attributions are not specified in the committee record excerpted here.

The bill’s supporters say it preserves child-safety protections while building medical accuracy and due process into investigations; critics at the hearing raised concerns about operational details such as who pays for expedited testing and how to define qualified medical opinions in time-sensitive settings. Committee members asked sponsors to refine language and implementation details as the measure advances.

Supporters at the hearing included the Patterson family and one appearance filed on behalf of the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (Doug Bell), who waived to register support. Several other parents and attorneys testified about cases they said following the pattern the bill addresses.