Massachusetts agrees to $10 million settlement over the 2020 death of Fall River teen David Almond
The settlement funds lifelong special needs trusts for his brothers and $750,000 for a scholarship and a grant fund in his name at the SouthCoast Community Foundation.
FALL RIVER The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has agreed to pay $10 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the estate of David Almond, the 14-year-old who starved to death in a Fall River apartment in 2020, and by his two surviving brothers, attorneys for the estate said Wednesday. The agreement is subject to court approval.
The settlement resolves claims over the Department of Children and Families' handling of David and his brothers, triplets who are autistic. The two surviving brothers, now adults, will each receive an independently managed lifelong special needs trust, the attorneys said.
"This settlement ensures David's brothers have the resources they need to build a full and productive life, and it creates a lasting legacy in David's name for other children like him who depend on the state to keep them safe," said Kimberly Dougherty of Justice Law Collaborative, which represents the estate.
Another $750,000 will go to the SouthCoast Community Foundation to establish two funds in David's memory: a $150,000 memorial scholarship for college, vocational or technical training, with first priority to neurodivergent children in Massachusetts foster care, and a $600,000 memorial fund for grants to Massachusetts nonprofits and schools that serve neurodivergent people.
"No settlement can undo what happened to David and his brothers, but this resolution holds the Commonwealth and DCF accountable for the systemic failures that put these very vulnerable boys in harm's way," said Paula Bliss, also of Justice Law Collaborative.
David died Oct. 21, 2020, six years to the day before the settlement was announced. Fall River Police received a 911 call at about 7:45 that morning for an unresponsive male at an apartment on Green Street. David was taken to Charlton Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. He was 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed about 80 pounds.
The lawsuit alleged that systemic failures by DCF led to David's death: that the department ignored warning signs, accelerated the boys' reunification with their father prematurely, and failed to respond to reports of abuse and neglect after the boys were returned to the home. The Commonwealth disputed the allegations and raised defenses that included sovereign immunity. After a partial dismissal in federal court, the case was refiled in state court, and the sides negotiated for nearly six months before reaching the agreement.
A 2021 investigation by the Office of the Child Advocate concluded that multiple government agencies failed to protect or properly monitor David, and that critical errors were made by both DCF and the Fall River Public Schools. The office found the decision to return the boys to the home was not clinically justified and failed to address the children's special needs and safety, and that social workers saw the boys only virtually for more than a year and a half during the pandemic.
"Had anyone seen the boys in person, given the state of their starvation at the time that the EMTs arrived to take them to the hospital, that it would have been very evident that they were being starved to death," Child Advocate Maria Mossaides said when the report was released.
David's father, John Almond, and his girlfriend, Jaclyn Coleman, were charged with second-degree murder in David's death. Both pleaded guilty and were sentenced to life in prison in 2023.
The settlement is now pending before the court.
Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.
How we verified this
Every settlement fact and both attorney quotes come from the estate's attorneys, reported identically by the Fall River Reporter and WCVB, both read fresh Oct. 21, 2026; the background rests on the Office of the Child Advocate's 2021 report and the 2023 convictions recounted in the same coverage. Names, dollar figures and dates were copied word for word and the death and announcement dates checked against a calendar (both Oct. 21; the announcement weekday, Wednesday, was checked against a calendar). The surviving brothers are deliberately not named. Not heard: DCF; a comment request is queued for the inbox desk.
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Sources (1)
- Also reported by: Fall River Reporter, WCVB.