A New Jersey appeals court has overturned what had been a $166 million jury verdict against the state Division of Youth and Family Services in the case of a child who was severely abused by his father after the agency investigated allegations of abuse.

The verdict was awarded in 2013 in the case of Jadiel Velesquez, who, at the age of 4 months, was left blind and cognitively disabled when his father shook him with great force to stop him from crying. The child's maternal grandmother, Neomi Escobar, who filed the suit, claimed that DYFS was negligent for failing to remove the infant from his parents. A judge later reduced the total recovery to $102 million.

The appeals court said that under agency rules, DYFS lacked a basis to remove the infant, given what was known at the time the abuse incident took place. The panel said the two DYFS employee defendants in the case were entitled to statutory and qualified immunity because their actions in the case were reasonable. And based on the immunity of the individual defendants, the appeals court declined to hold DYFS or the state liable under a respondeat superior theory of liability.