A 3-year-old was starved and beaten to death. Lawsuit accuses Philadelphia FIGHT of failing to report ongoing abuse.

Three-year-old Hope Jones weighed 24.5 pounds, less than 99% of children her height and age, just a month before she died in July 2022.

The child was starved and beaten up by her foster parent, a distant relative from Southwest Philadelphia who pleaded no contest to third-degree murder over Hope’s death.

A child welfare agency, Northeast Treatment Centers, paid $6.5 million to settle a lawsuit accusing it of failing to supervise Hope’s care. And in a rare move, one of their social workers was charged criminally but later cleared of wrongdoing in trial.

A new federal lawsuit is pointing a finger in another direction. It accuses medical providers from Philadelphia FIGHT, a community health nonprofit based in Center City, of failing to investigate or report abuse despite a series of red flags from Hope’s wellness checks.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, is against the United States because FIGHT is a federally qualified health center and thus receives funding and operates with requirements from the government.

Philadelphia’s U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment. FIGHT did not respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit is not only the latest legal fallout from Hope’s death, but the latest in litigation brought after children who were part of the city’s child welfare system have been harmed.

This fall, child welfare agencies were sued over the death of 20-month-old Syvir Hill, who was allegedly drowned by another child in a bath unsupervised, and that of 11-year-old Nayshaun Williams, who died of an asthma attack after a school nurse repeatedly raised concerns that he was not receiving adequate medical treatment.

» READ MORE: Toddler’s death in the bathtub of a Philly foster home prompts lawsuit

The city and its affiliated agencies were sued nearly 70 times between 2012 and 2024 after kids in their care were killed, sexually abused, or injured, an Inquirer/Resolve Philly investigation found. And at least 50 of these lawsuits led to settlements or verdicts of $1 million or more.

Two agencies declined to extend their contract with the city last year, citing litigation insurance costs.

The new lawsuit on behalf of Hope’s biological family extends the circle of litigants to include medical providers.

“It’s another group of professionals that failed Hope,” said Sherrell Dandy, one of the Kline & Specter attorneys representing the family.

Child welfare services were involved in Hope’s life from her first days on Earth, according to the complaint. Her mother and the infant tested positive for marijuana after the delivery, and the Philadelphia Department of Human Services placed the infant under its care.

Hope became a FIGHT patient, and her first few visits as a baby went well, the lawsuit says. She was “well-developed and well-nourished,” the complaint says, and had a “good appetite.”

Hope’s weight reached the 98th percentile at her 15-month wellness visit, in the summer of 2020, but she fell off the growth chart steadily after the following November when she was placed in foster care with a distant relative, the complaint says. Hope failed to meet developmental milestones and lost teeth, a couple times without explanation and another time following an alleged fall.

The child’s medical records note that she developed an abnormal gait, ate her own feces, and was eating extremely fast followed by periodically vomiting, the suit says.

The FIGHT physicians did refer Hope to an orthopedic specialist because of her gait, but the lawsuit says that they failed to recognize it as “clinical indicators of severe weight loss and underlying caloric deprivation, starvation, and neglect.”

Hope’s weight fell to the single digits as summer 2022 approach. She was rushed to the hospital that July and was pronounced dead. The Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office determined that her cause of death was multiple blunt impact injuries, and the manner of death was homicide.

“The hallmark for health is growth,” said Nadeem Bezar, another Kline & Specter attorney. “During those visits there were alarming things that were never followed up on.”

A previous version of the lawsuit was filed against FIGHT in federal court in February. A judge dismissed that case in March because Hope’s estate had other administrative remedies to pursue before filing a lawsuit, and said that the appropriate defendant would be the United States. The new lawsuit says that all administrative remedies were exhausted and the government is the only defendant.