She Took Her Fight For Her Grandson Public. A Hawaii Judge Said She Went Too Far …Big Island resident Deborah Goodwin says she had no choice but to speak to a reporter and file a lawsuit about her case because the confidential system had treated her unfairly. It backfired.
For six years, Deborah Goodwin did everything she could think of to try to foster and then adopt her orphaned grandson. She went before the Family Court on the Big Island, and when that didn’t work, appealed to the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals and the state Supreme Court. In the meantime, she filed a lawsuit against the state Department of Human Services in Circuit Court.
Three years ago, she contacted Civil Beat, which did a story about her case. She told a court-appointed custody evaluator she wanted to write a book about her experience. She said that if she were not able to adopt her grandson, she planned to “go all Erin Brockovich” to expose what she saw as corruption in Hawaii’s foster care and adoption system. Brockovich famously took on a California utility company over groundwater pollution.
Her efforts fell short. On New Year’s Eve in 2019, while she was with her grandson at their favorite surfing spot on the Big Island, her attorney called to say that a Family Court judge had approved the boy’s adoption by a non-relative couple who had fostered him.
