NOTICE: NOT FOR OFFICIAL PUBLICATION.

UNDER ARIZONA RULE OF THE SUPREME COURT 111(c), THIS DECISION IS NOT PRECEDENTIAL

AND MAY BE CITED ONLY AS AUTHORIZED BY RULE.

IN THE

ARIZONA COURT OF APPEALS

DIVISION ONE

JENNIFER GILLILAND, Plaintiff/Appellant,

v.

CARLEE LILL, et al., Defendants/Appellees.

No. 1 CA-CV 17-0337

Appeal from the Superior Court in Maricopa County

No. CV2016-090669

The Honorable Robert H. Oberbillig, Judge (Retired)

AFFIRMED

COUNSEL

Keith M. Knowlton LLC, Tempe

By Keith M. Knowlton

Counsel for Plaintiff/Appellant

Arizona Attorney General’s Office, Phoenix

By James B. Bowen, Daniel P. Schaack

Counsel for Defendants/Appellees

FILED 3-27-2018
GILLILAND v. LILL, et al.

Decision of the Court

2

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Presiding Judge Randall M. Howe delivered the decision of the Court, in 

which Judge Kenton D. Jones and Judge James B. Morse Jr. joined.

H O W E, Judge:

¶1 Jennifer Gilliland appeals the trial court’s dismissal of her 

amended complaint against Department of Child Safety1 case manager

Carlee Lill. For the following reasons, we affirm.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶2 The underlying facts are undisputed. In April 2011, because 

of mental illness, Gilliland erroneously believed that her daughter, M.G., 

was not actually her daughter. M.G. told her teacher about Gilliland’s 

conduct and the teacher reported it to the Department. The Department 

subsequently petitioned for dependency, alleging that M.G. was dependent 

due to Gilliland’s mental health and neglect by failing to provide proper 

supervision and care. The juvenile court found M.G. dependent and the 

Department placed M.G. with her teacher and his spouse as foster parents.

During the dependency’s duration, Lill was the assigned case manager.

¶3 Over the next seven months, Gilliland participated in services 

to address the mental health and neglect issues, but M.G.’s Guardian Ad 

Litem (“GAL”) nevertheless moved to terminate Gilliland’s parental rights

in November 2011. The juvenile court denied the termination motion in 

May 2012 and ordered that the case plan be family reunification and that 

the Department provide services to Gilliland and M.G. that would help 

mend their relationship. Lill facilitated these services.

¶4 In early 2013, Gilliland became concerned that M.G.’s foster 

parents were alienating M.G.’s affections toward her and requested a 

change in M.G.’s placement. In May 2013, M.G.’s foster parents moved to 

 

1 During the time of this case, Child Protective Services was a division 

of the Arizona Department of Economic Security; the Department of Child 

Safety has since undertaken its responsibilities. See 2014 Ariz. Sess. Laws, 

ch. 1 §§ 6, 20, 55 (2d Spec. Sess.). For consistency, we refer to Child 

Protective Services as the Department throughout this decision.
GILLILAND v. LILL, et al.

Decision of the Court

3

intervene in the dependency. The Department opposed the foster parents’ 

motion and noted that the foster parents were interfering with the family 

reunification case plan and wanted to adopt M.G. In a June 2013 report to 

the juvenile court, Lill discussed Gilliland’s progress in services. Lill added 

that M.G.’s therapist, GAL, and foster parents had thwarted reunification 

efforts because of their desire to honor M.G.’s statement that she was not 

“ready” to have visitations and therapy with Gilliland. The juvenile court

denied the foster parents’ motion to intervene and ordered that Gilliland 

and M.G. engage in counseling to facilitate therapeutic visitation. During 

this time, M.G. told Gilliland that she would never speak to her again if 

Gilliland did not rescind the request for a change in M.G.’s placement.

Gilliland withdrew the request.

¶5 Gilliland and M.G. participated in family therapy without 

success. The family therapist found that M.G.’s individual therapist was not 

helping to facilitate therapeutic visitation and that the foster parents did not 

encourage M.G. to participate in the visitation. Because family therapy had 

been unsuccessful, the Department informed the juvenile court in 

December 2013 that the family reunification case plan was infeasible and 

that since M.G. was now 16 years old, the Department recommended a 

long-term foster care case plan. The juvenile court agreed and changed the 

case plan to long-term foster care.

¶6 In May 2014, Lill reported that the family therapy service had 

ended because M.G. stated that she was not ready for increased 

communication with Gilliland. Lill also reported that the Department 

would continue to provide monthly case management services but 

recommended that M.G. remain with her foster family with ongoing visits 

with Gilliland whenever M.G. was ready. The Department also 

recommended that the case plan be changed to independent living, which 

the juvenile court granted. 

¶7 Six months later, the Department notified the juvenile court 

that it would seek to terminate Gilliland’s parental rights. The juvenile court 

requested that a termination petition be filed. The following month, M.G. 

had her counsel file a termination motion. After the Arizona Adoption 

Review Board informed M.G. that she would not qualify for services if she 

were adopted, M.G. withdrew her termination motion. After M.G. 

withdrew her termination motion, the juvenile court dismissed the 

dependency effective the day before M.G.’s 18th birthday.

¶8 In March 2016, Gilliland brought a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim 

against Lill, alleging that Lill violated Gilliland’s constitutional right to the 
GILLILAND v. LILL, et al.

Decision of the Court

4

care, custody, and companionship of M.G. Lill moved to dismiss based on 

qualified immunity and the statute of limitations. The trial court ruled that 

Lill was entitled to qualified immunity because a case manager in this 

situation would not reasonably know that his or her conduct violated a 

parent’s constitutional right while the parent’s child was in the State’s 

custody. Gilliland timely appealed.

DISCUSSION

¶9 Gilliland argues that Lill did not have qualified immunity and 

therefore the trial court erred by dismissing the amended complaint. 

Gilliland contends that she had a fundamental constitutional right to a 

continued relationship with her child and that Lill’s conduct violated that 

right. We review the trial court’s grant of qualified immunity in a § 1983 

claim de novo. See Ochser v. Funk, 228 Ariz. 365, 369 ¶ 11 (2011). Because the 

alleged unlawfulness of Lill’s conduct was not clearly established at the 

time of the challenged conduct, the trial court correctly found that Lill had 

qualified immunity. 

¶10 Federal law governs whether a government official has 

qualified immunity from a § 1983 claim. Id. at ¶ 12. “The doctrine shields 

federal and state officials from money damages unless a plaintiff pleads 

facts showing (1) that the official violated a statutory or constitutional right, 

and (2) that the right was clearly established at the time of the challenged 

conduct.” Id. Reviewing courts have discretion to decide which of the two 

prongs to consider first and need not address both prongs if either prong is 

satisfied. Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 735 (2011). Additionally, “[c]ourts 

should think carefully before expending scarce judicial resources to resolve 

difficult and novel questions of constitutional or statutory interpretation 

that will have no effect on the outcome of the case.” Id.

¶11 A government official’s conduct violates clearly established 

law when, at the time of the challenged conduct, “[t]he contours of [a] right 

[are] sufficiently clear” that every “reasonable official would have 

understood that what he is doing violates that right.” Id. at 741. This is so 

because government officials should know that their conduct is unlawful 

before they are subjected to suit. Ochser, 228 Ariz. at 371 ¶ 27. As such, “the 

right allegedly violated must be defined at an appropriate level of 

specificity before a court can determine if it was clearly established.” Id. at 

371 ¶ 27.

¶12 Our supreme court has stated that “[t]o determine whether a 

right was clearly established at the time of an [official’s] conduct, we look 
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Decision of the Court

5

to cases from the Supreme Court and [the Arizona Supreme Court], as well 

as cases from other courts exhibiting a consensus view.” Id. at 372 ¶ 28. 

Although a case need not be directly on point, “existing precedent must 

have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate.” alKidd, 563 U.S. at 741.

¶13 Lill’s conduct did not violate any clearly established law. 

Although Gilliland does not plainly state Lill’s exact conduct that violated 

a clearly established law, we surmise her argument to be that Lill should 

have placed M.G. in, or later removed M.G. to, a foster family that 

supported the family reunification case plan. At the time of Lill’s conduct, 

however, no court had held in a published decision that a case manager’s 

objective reporting and decision to not remove a child from foster parents 

who interfered with a case plan violated a parent’s right to a relationship 

with his or her child. Lill and the Department diligently complied with the 

case plan from the time that the dependency was initiated in April 2011 

until the Department informed the court that family reunification was 

infeasible in December 2013. Lill reported to the juvenile court all the issues 

occurring with M.G. and the foster parents, and the juvenile court approved 

the change in case plan to long-term foster care. No reasonable case 

manager would have known that the conduct here violated any clearly 

established constitutional right a parent may have during a dependency 

proceeding. As such, Lill was entitled to qualified immunity. 

¶14 Citing Kelson v. City of Springfield, 767 F.2d 651, 653–54 (9th 

Cir. 1985) and Wilkinson v. Torres, 610 F.3d 546, 554 (9th Cir. 2010), Gilliland 

counters that a State official is liable under § 1983 when the official’s 

conduct: (1) deprives a parent of his or her protected liberty interest in 

ongoing companionship with his or her child, or (2) is so intrusive that the 

conduct essentially results in a termination of parental rights. But those 

cases describe at a high level of generality a parent’s rights to 

companionship with his or her child and do not suffice in qualified 

immunity cases to provide a constitutional right that is beyond debate. See 

District of Columbia v. Wesby, 138 S. Ct. 577, 590 (2018) (“We have repeatedly 

stressed that courts must not define clearly established law at a high level 

of generality, since doing so avoids the crucial question whether the official 

acted reasonably . . . .”). The cases Gilliland relies on do not involve parents 

whose children are in State custody or define a clearly established right of 

those parents to expect a case manager to side with them when foster 

parents interfere with a case plan; that is, to advocate on behalf of the 

natural parents. Therefore, these cases are irrelevant to our consideration of

whether Gilliland’s right was clearly established at the time of the 

challenged conduct. And contrary to Gilliland’s assertion, any alleged 
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Decision of the Court

6

violations were not so obvious that Gilliland’s highly general allegations of 

impropriety by Lill satisfy the “clearly established” requirement. See 

Brosseau v. Haugen, 543 U.S. 194, 199 (2004) (noting that where violations are 

obvious, the “clearly established” requirement can be satisfied when cast at 

a high level of generality even without a body of relevant case law).

¶15 Gilliland cites no authority supporting the legal premise that

a Department case manager has a duty to force a parent’s 16-year-old child 

to participate in therapy or visitation. Nor does Gilliland cite any cases that 

have held a Department case manager has a duty to act in a parent’s favor 

during a dependency. While Gilliland is correct that M.G.’s foster parents 

interfered with the court-ordered case plan—and the Department does not 

argue otherwise—that interference was not attributable to Lill. In fact, Lill 

reported the interference to the juvenile court and Gilliland does not 

suggest that Lill was dishonest or failed to report that or any other pertinent 

information to the court. Lill exercised her discretion in not requesting a 

change in placement as did Gilliland when she rescinded her request for a 

change of placement. On this record, Gilliland has not shown any specific 

violations of a clearly established right, and the trial court did not err by 

dismissing Gilliland’s amended complaint. 

CONCLUSION

¶16 For the foregoing reasons, we affirm.