These Two Grandparents Fought Back Against Illegal County Court Fees - and Won

Shirley and Daniel Freeman at their home in Riverside, CA.

Illegal Fees

Shirley and I have always believed in standing up for what’s right and helping others. But we never expected these values would lead us into a legal fight against Riverside County.

Our story began more than 15 years ago when we became guardians to Shirley’s daughter’s three children. One of our grandsons entered the juvenile legal system in 2007 or 2008, and we started receiving collection notices saying we owed more than $8,000 for his case. Most of this money was for a daily “cost of support” fee that the County charged us for each day our grandson was in detention.

At the time, Shirley and I were both over 65, living on Social Security, and raising three grandchildren while Shirley was undergoing cancer treatment. We told the County we couldn’t afford to pay these fees. The County’s response was to put us on a $25 per month payment plan, which was still difficult to manage. After doing our best to make the monthly payments for more than a decade, we still owed thousands of dollars.

After struggling with this debt for so many years and still owing so much money, I went to the juvenile courthouse and started knocking on doors asking for help. Eventually, I met a public defender who helped us arrange a hearing, at which a judge ruled that we no longer needed to make payments due to our financial circumstances. This is when we learned that state law required the County to consider our financial circumstances before requiring us to make payments, which they never did.  Nor did they tell us that we could have asked a judge to review our case to decide if we could afford to pay the fees. Instead, we were told to make payments, even though we couldn’t afford them. And we lived with the stress of this enormous debt for years.

Freeman v. County of Riverside

Even though we no longer had to make payments in our case, we chose to join a lawsuit to represent other parents and guardians who, like us, were pursued by the County for years even though they couldn’t afford to pay. We were hesitant—it was hard to revisit our struggles, and we worried about how it might affect our reputation. But Shirley and I believe in “love thy neighbor” and wanted to stand up for others.

Members of the Freeman family.

Shirley and I were in our 80s when we took on this case. After three and a half years, the case resolved and brought meaningful relief to a lot of families. The County stopped collecting these outstanding fees, and families like ours received refunds of some of the money they had paid to the County. Shirley and I are proud of what we accomplished—not just for ourselves, but for the more than 1,000 families facing similar challenges and injustices. We remember what it felt like to have that financial burden lifted from us, and we’re thrilled we could help do the same for other families.

Making a Difference

We’re honored to receive recognition from the Impact Fund for our role in this important case. We’re excited to share it with our five children, 28 grandchildren, and 23 great-grandchildren, showing them that having the courage to do the right thing for others — no matter how difficult — can make a real difference. We believe the world becomes a better place when people stand up for what’s right and help others, and we’re proud to have done our part.