When Sharwline Nicholson thinks about what happened in January 1999, it's not about the fact that her boyfriend beat her for the first and last time.

Instead she thinks about her children, who were removed that night and put into foster care, while Nicholson was charged with child neglect--for an offense called "engaging in domestic violence." "I've had no time for knowing I was a victim of domestic violence," Sharwline (pronounced like "Charlene") Nicholson says. "When they removed my children, the physical pain was overlooked."

As the lead plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against the City and State of New York, Nicholson's now part of a landmark decision--rendered in March by District Court Judge Jack Weinstein--that could change child welfare as we know it.

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