The state Supreme Court has been asked to reinstate a $166 million verdict against the state in the case of a child severely abused by his father after child-welfare authorities left him in the father's custody.

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 the Division of Youth and Family Services—now the Division of Child Permanency and Placement—was negligent for failing to remove the infant from his parents. A judge later reduced the total recovery to $102 million.