The state plans to appeal a judge’s ruling in which the state Department of Human Services was found negligent — along with a Navy diver based at Pearl Harbor — in the 2009 death of the sailor’s 14-month-old boy, who was struck or shaken to death.

Circuit Judge Gary W.B. Chang awarded the boy’s grandmother Terri Polm $250,000 in the wrongful-death lawsuit that found the father, Matthew McVeigh, and DHS equally responsible in the death of Brayden McVeigh.

The little boy had a brief life that was "marred by violence and pain," Chang said in his August ruling.

At birth McVeigh tested positive for opiates resulting from his mother’s prescribed methadone treatment and subsequent addiction, Chang said.

The father was subject to intermittent fits of anger or violence, the judge said.

At 5 weeks McVeigh experienced a traumatic fracture of his right upper arm, and Chang said there was evidence that the boy suffered multiple injuries resulting in black eyes and bruises.

It was in August 2008 that DHS classified McVeigh’s broken arm as suspected abuse and neglect — taking the boy and his sister into custody and temporarily placing them in foster care, according to court records.

But when the children were returned to their parents six months later, a DHS social worker repeatedly dropped the ball in monitoring McVeigh’s well-being, Chang found.

Chang said DHS had a duty in 2009, up until McVeigh’s death on Sept. 20 of that year, to provide him with "competent, prompt and ample protection from harm."

Indeed, because McVeigh already was known to DHS to have been the victim of "suspected severe child abuse and neglect," a policy known as the "Green Book" placed him at a higher risk of re-harm and required immediate steps to assess any such harm, the judge said.

Chang said DHS social worker Gwenson Yuen, McVeigh’s caseworker, didn’t log a black eye observed on the boy into a mandatory record-keeping system — which would have raised red flags with later injuries — and didn’t take other required steps in the case.

Yuen at one point was under the impression that reports of black eyes months apart were just one incident and not two, Chang said.

"The failure (by) DHS to properly document injuries to Brayden and to properly disseminate such information to other child welfare professional working on Brayden’s case was a substantial factor that prevented the intricate and extensive procedures established by the Green Book and the applicable law to be engaged to provide for the protection of Brayden," Chang said in the 54-page ruling.

Anne Lopez, special assistant to the state attorney general, whose office defended DHS, said her office was withholding comment until it files an appeals brief April 4.

DHS and Matthew McVeigh, who is serving a 12-year prison sentence for the death of his son, were found to each be 50 percent responsible for the $250,000 award to the boy’s grandmother as the personal representative of his estate.

In a statement to the Hono­lulu Star-Advertiser, DHS contested some of Chang’s findings.

"Mr. McVeigh did not have a history of violence, did not have a criminal history and did not have a history of domestic abuse," the agency said. "That Mr. McVeigh ‘cracked’ and assaulted his child was not foreseeable; we simply cannot predict violence in those without a history of violence."

McVeigh’s "criminal act was the sole cause of the death," DHS said. "The taxpayers of this state are not responsible for any harm done to Brayden."

A DHS review of the case after the child’s death "showed that while some paperwork could have been more thorough, DHS employees complied with DHS policies," the agency said.

Asked whether Yuen was terminated as a social worker, DHS said, "Personnel policies prohibit the DHS from commenting on actions taken (or not taken) against an individual employee."

A call to DHS Friday did not turn up a Gwenson Yuen at the agency. He could not be reached for comment.

Paul Smith, who represented Polm, called it an "obvious case of harm" to McVeigh.

"I think it was always very clear to us that the state and its social worker who was responsible for the case … were at fault in not intervening," Smith said.

April McVeigh, the boy’s mother, testified in military court in 2011 that she took methadone for years to ease chronic pain and that it was mainly Matthew McVeigh who woke their two children in the morning, got them ready, drove them to the baby sitter, picked them up, bathed them at night and did the cooking, cleaning and laundry.

April McVeigh told the court that when her husband carried Brayden upstairs on Sept. 18, 2009, the boy was limp and not breathing. Their daughter, Brodi, then 3, was at a babysitter’s at the time. The boy was brought to a hospital, where he died Sept. 20.

Matthew McVeigh was stressed and overwhelmed at work and home, he had financial problems and his wife’s drug use and lack of help and support were beginning to be too much, the prosecution said at the time.

He took it out on his young son in a pattern of escalating violence, the prosecution said.

Yuen, who had the title of "social worker" but never attended college courses in social work, instead getting experience on the job, was assigned the McVeigh case in February 2009, the same month Brayden and Brodi were returned to their parents, Chang said.

Chang found that:

» Yuen did not consider that Brayden McVeigh was removed from the McVeigh household due to suspected child abuse, even though it was in the case files. He thought McVeigh was removed due to neglect.

» On June 19, 2009, a bruise was observed near McVeigh’s left eye. Matthew McVeigh said the boy fell and hit the corner of a table. Yuen never visited the home to determine whether the family had a table that could cause the injury.

» Yuen did not log the injury into a mandatory record-keeping system so that other social workers would be able to see the case history.

» Yuen mistakenly thought a black eye to the right eye and temple reported by a baby sitter on Aug. 5, 2009, was the same black eye that Yuen had observed in June. That black eye was on the left side of Brayden McVeigh’s face.

» After McVeigh’s baby sitter raised concern, a DHS "intake worker" recommended on Aug. 5, 2009, that the boy undergo a complete body exam to determine whether he was being abused. Yuen told the worker that he would "look into the matter," but did not perform an assessment as required.

Yuen testified that had he known that the second black eye was a new injury and he received a medical opinion of "re-harm" to McVeigh, he would have established a crisis response unit and called 911, Chang said.

"That medical opinion never came because DHS failed to investigate the Aug. 5, 2009, report of possible re-harm or injury," Chang wrote. The judge also criticized the "deplorable state of documentation and communication" by and between DHS employees.

Polm, the maternal grandmother and a Texas resident, tried to get custody of both children, and in a court filing in March 2013, she said she spent more than $140,000 "arising out of Brayden’s death" and in efforts to win custody of Brodi.

The girl lives with Matthew McVeigh’s parents in Illinois, said Smith, Polm’s attorney.

"We continually refine our assessment tool in unknown perpetrator cases, and have established a specialized unit that investigates and assesses these cases," DHS said in its statement. "Forensic interviews in many serious harm cases and unknown perpetrator cases are now conducted in partnership with the Children’s Justice Center."

The agency said it has also worked to develop closer working relationships with the prosecutor’s office and law enforcement.