Santa Clara County has paid $5.5 million to settle a lawsuit over its former chief pediatrician for foster kids, a one-time foster and adoptive parent accused of sexually abusing a boy in his care, according to his lawyer.
The settlement agreement between the county and the former foster youth, a Northern California resident now in his 30s, is the first time the county has paid damages to one of Dr. Patrick Clyne’s accusers — and attorneys say more lawsuits are imminent.
The settlement marks a major reckoning for Santa Clara County’s child-welfare and public-health systems, which court records show were repeatedly warned for years that children in Clyne’s care were being abused — yet continued to employ him, place foster children in his home and allow him to examine young patients.
Wyatt Vespermann, one of the lawyers who represented the former foster youth, confirmed terms of the settlement, which a county document shows was paid in September.
Santa Clara County officials would say only that “the settlement was properly authorized.”
Clyne, 64, has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged with any crime related to the allegations.
Dozens of children in foster care and multiple boys who lived in Clyne’s home when he was a licensed foster parent have accused him of sexual abuse, and he has been the subject of criminal investigations dating back to 2001.
The former foster youth said preparing his case took a tremendous toll on him.
“It is a very hard thing to stand up for yourself in my situation,” he said in a recent Instagram post. “But through perseverance and searching for some form of justice, I can sleep a little easier knowing I have made an impact against the evil that is out there.”
The case against Santa Clara County was filed in Superior Court in 2020 — decades after the former foster youth made repeated reports to authorities about the abuse he said he suffered in Clyne’s home, including to police, a probation officer, his mother and a criminal grand jury.
Court documents show Santa Clara County is planning to pursue a separate civil action against Clyne to establish that he “was the legal cause of any injuries and damages sustained by” the former foster youth.
The youth was placed in Clyne’s South Bay home in 1995 after being removed from his mother. A fourth grader at the time, he was one of several boys who lived with Clyne — a rare foster-care doctor who also took in children from the system as a single foster parent.
As early as 2001, Santa Clara County social workers, parents, therapists and staff at two residential group homes alleged that children in his care had been abused, according to court records.
Abuse allegations resurfaced again in 2009, when at least 10 children ages 8 through 11 told law enforcement officers that Clyne sexually abused them during routine medical examinations, records show.
In 2011, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office notified defense attorneys there was “substantial evidence” that Clyne, who had been a longtime expert witness in child abuse cases, had committed “multiple crimes of moral turpitude, specifically sexual assaults.”
Santa Clara County fired Clyne the same year. In 2014, the California Department of Social Services prohibited him from ever serving as a foster parent again and barred him from working with children or adults in state-licensed facilities.
In 2011, Clyne told The San Jose Mercury News: “I’ve worked in San Jose for the past 16 years and I’ve never had an interaction with a kid that was inappropriate or unprofessional in those 16 years — or at any time in my life.” He later added: “Whatever the allegation is, it isn’t true.”
After his firing, Clyne retained his medical license and opened a private practice serving a largely immigrant community in rural Santa Cruz County, where a complaint of inappropriate touching during a medical exam triggered a joint investigation by the Medical Board of California and the Watsonville Police Department.
In 2021, California Attorney General Rob Bonta charged Clyne with “unprofessional acts” and “gross negligence” during medical examinations of six patients. He surrendered his medical license last year.
In December, two additional former Santa Clara County foster youths filed sexual abuse lawsuits against Clyne and Santa Clara County. They said the abuse occurred during routine health exams at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center and Valley Health Center between 1998 and 2008.
The lawsuits claim Clyne groomed the children, fondled their genitals under their clothes and without gloves and masturbated in front of them, according to court documents.
“The Plaintiffs have alleged in court documents that the County of Santa Clara not only failed to protect them from a predator they knew was dangerous, but actively concealed reports of abuse,” attorney Simona Danesh said in an emailed statement.
A state law that took effect in 2020 helped Kyle’s case proceed. The California Child Victims Act expanded the statute of limitations for childhood sex abuse crimes, allowing victims to file suit as adults until age 40 in most cases.
“There were so many times when the system failed Kyle, and this is now the first time that the system has recognized that his harm was real,” Vespermann said. “I think the validation for Kyle is where the real win was in this case.”
This story is being co-published with The Imprint, a national nonprofit news outlet covering child welfare and youth justice. Jeremy Loudenback is a staff writer for The Imprint. He can be reached at jloud@imprintnews.org. Read an earlier version at The Imprint.
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