FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

SYDNEY RIEMAN; K. B., a minor 

by and through his Guardian Ad 

Litem, Steven L. Rieman, 

Plaintiffs-Appellees, 

 v. 

GLORIA VAZQUEZ; MIRTA 

JOHNSON, 

Defendants-Appellants, 

and 

DOES, 2-10 inclusive; KRISTINE 

BROWN, also known as Doe 2, 

Defendants.

No.22-56054 

D.C. No. 

5:20-cv-00362-

CBM-SP 

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Consuelo B. Marshall, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted December 4, 2023

Pasadena, California
2 RIEMAN V. VASQUEZ

Filed March 5, 2024

Before: CARLOS T. BEA, MILAN D. SMITH, JR., and 

LAWRENCE VANDYKE, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr.

SUMMARY*

Social Worker Immunity

The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of absolute 

and qualified immunity to two County of San Bernardino 

social workers in an action brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 

§ 1983 by Sydney Rieman and her child, K.B., by and 

through his guardian ad litem Steven Rieman, alleging that 

defendants violated plaintiffs’ Fourth and Fourteenth 

Amendment rights by (1) failing to provide them with notice 

of a juvenile detention hearing in which the County’s Child 

and Family Services sought custody of K.B.; and (2) 

providing false information to the Juvenile Court about why 

Ms. Rieman was not noticed for the hearing. 

The panel rejected defendants’ assertion that they were 

entitled to absolute immunity for actions taken in their quasiprosecutorial role as social workers. Although social 

workers may enjoy absolute immunity from suit for 

discretionary, quasi-prosecutorial decisions to institute court 

dependency proceedings to take custody away from parents, 

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has 

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
RIEMAN V. VASQUEZ 3

here neither the actions nor omissions for which defendants 

were being sued—i.e., providing false information to the 

Juvenile Court and failing to give notice of the detention 

hearing—were similar to discretionary decisions about 

whether to prosecute. Moreover, absolute immunity did not 

apply to the Riemans’ claim that defendants failed to give 

them notice of the detention hearing as such notice was 

mandatory and, therefore, unlike the discretionary decision 

to initiate prosecution. 

The panel held that defendants were not entitled to 

qualified immunity from suit for failing to provide notice of 

the hearing. Ms. Rieman had a due process right to such 

notice and that right was clearly established. It was clear at 

the time that parents could not be summarily deprived of the 

care and custody of their children without notice and a 

hearing, except when the children were in imminent danger. 

The panel held that defendants were not entitled to 

qualified immunity for their misrepresentation to the 

Juvenile Court about why Ms. Rieman was not noticed for 

the hearing. A reasonable social worker in defendants’ shoes 

would have understood, based on prior decisional law, that 

providing incomplete and false information to the Juvenile 

Court about Ms. Rieman’s whereabouts to convince the 

court that the social workers had satisfied the due process 

notice requirement constituted judicial deception.
4 RIEMAN V. VASQUEZ

COUNSEL

James C. Jardin (argued), Collins and Collins LLP, Orange, 

California; Christie B. Swiss, Collins and Collins LLP, 

Carlsbad, California; Adam A. Ainslie, Collins and Collins 

LLP, Pasadena, California; for Defendants-Appellants.

Donnie R. Cox (argued), Law Office of Donnie R. Cox, 

Carlsbad, California; Sarah E. Marinho, Marinho Law Firm, 

San Jose, California; Paul W. Leehey, Law Office of Paul 

W. Leehey, Fallbrook, California; for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

OPINION

M. SMITH, Circuit Judge:

Sydney Rieman (Ms. Rieman) and her child, K. B., a 

minor by and through his guardian ad litem, Steven L. 

Rieman, filed suit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that 

social workers Mirta Johnson and Gloria Vazquez, among 

others, violated the Riemans’ constitutional rights. Vazquez 

and Johnson appeal from the district court’s order denying 

them absolute and qualified immunity. We affirm.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

On the afternoon of September 6, 2018, twenty-day-old 

K. B. fell off the bed where Ms. Rieman had placed him 

shortly before she went to the bathroom to wash her hands. 

According to Ms. Rieman, she did not see what precipitated 

the fall. Upon witnessing the fall, Ms. Rieman and her 

mother rushed K. B. to the nearest hospital, High Desert 

Medical Center (HDMC). The medical personnel at HDMC 
RIEMAN V. VASQUEZ 5

examined K. B. and observed him for four hours, but they 

did not perform any diagnostic studies, such as a 

computerized tomography (CT) scan, X-ray, or ultrasound 

before K. B. left the hospital.

Out of an abundance of caution as a mandated reporter, 

an HDMC nurse reported the incident to San Bernardino 

County’s Child and Family Services (CFS) hotline. The 

emergency response referral listed Ms. Rieman’s home 

address and phone number. The following morning, 

Johnson, a supervising social worker, picked up the 

emergency response referral. Johnson assigned the case to 

Vazquez. Shortly after receiving her case assignment, 

Vazquez went to Ms. Rieman’s home to conduct her 

investigation of the referral. When Vazquez advised Ms. 

Rieman that the family should take the baby to Loma Linda 

University Medical Center (LLUMC) for further evaluation, 

the family asked for an opportunity to speak with Vazquez’s 

supervisor, Johnson, which was granted.

Ms. Rieman, her mother, and her stepfather then drove 

to the Yucca Valley CFS office to meet with Johnson. On 

the way, the family made an appointment for K. B. to be seen 

by Dr. Kasko, an obstetrician-gynecologist, for a follow-up 

examination. Once they arrived at the CFS office, Johnson 

expressed concern over the possibility of undetected internal 

injuries and urged the family to consider taking K. B. to 

LLUMC to be evaluated by another doctor. Ms. Rieman 

informed Johnson that an HMDC doctor had expressed 

concern over the level of radiation to which K. B. would be 

exposed if a CT scan were performed. At no point during 

this meeting or in any other conversations with CFS did its 

representatives inform Ms. Rieman that CFS would seek a 

warrant if she did not take K. B. to LLUMC. 
6 RIEMAN V. VASQUEZ

Shortly after the family left the CFS office, Vazquez and 

Johnson began drafting an application for a detention

warrant. Upon reviewing the application and finding 

probable cause, the Juvenile Court issued a temporary 

detention warrant pursuant to § 306(a)(1) of the California 

Welfare and Institutions Code. The warrant authorized law 

enforcement to enter Ms. Rieman’s home in Yucca Valley, 

to locate K. B., to temporarily detain K. B. for placement

with a licensed approved foster home or relative, and to seek 

a forensic interview and forensic medical examinations

while excluding Ms. Rieman from those examinations. 

Under California law, the temporary detainment could only

last for forty-eight hours, “excluding nonjudicial days,” after 

which K. B. would be returned to Ms. Rieman’s custody 

unless CFS filed a petition “within said period of time . . . to 

declare [the child] a dependent child . . . .” Cal. Welf. & Inst. 

Code § 313(a).

Law enforcement and Vazquez attempted to serve the 

temporary detention warrant at Ms. Rieman’s home address 

twice that evening, but no one answered the door. The next 

morning, on September 8, 2018, another law enforcement 

officer attempted to serve the warrant at Ms. Rieman’s 

home, but again, there was no response. Vazquez and the 

officer made a fourth and final attempt later that afternoon 

to no avail. The parties dispute exactly why these service 

attempts were unsuccessful. Some facts in the record 

suggest that Ms. Rieman and her family were deliberately 

evading service of the warrant. The Riemans, however, 

contend they were unaware of the warrant and were merely 

avoiding contact with Vazquez, whom they viewed as 

hostile.

In the days following the unsuccessful service attempts 

of the warrant, Vazquez began preparing a juvenile 
RIEMAN V. VASQUEZ 7

dependency petition and detention report pursuant to § 300 

of the California Welfare and Institutions Code. In preparing 

these documents, Vazquez scheduled the accompanying 

detention hearing for September 12, 2018, at 8:00 AM. In 

the detention report, which both Vazquez and Johnson 

ultimately signed, they claimed that Ms. Rieman was “not 

noticed” for the detention hearing because her “whereabouts 

[were] unknown.” They also listed a different telephone 

number than the one that was listed for Ms. Rieman in the 

original emergency response referral compiled by CFS. 

Vazquez ultimately filed the petition and report on 

September 11, 2018.

Meanwhile, it is undisputed that Ms. Rieman’s family 

attempted to contact CFS on several occasions. Despite their 

acknowledged attempts to get in touch with CFS, Vazquez 

and Johnson never called or otherwise attempted to notify 

Ms. Rieman that a detention hearing concerning her child 

was scheduled to take place on the morning of September 

12, 2018. Therefore, when the Juvenile Court held the 

detention hearing on the morning of September 12, 2018, 

Ms. Rieman did not appear.

At the hearing, the court ordered K. B. to be detained and 

removed from his mother’s care and custody and placed in 

the custody of CFS. The court also ordered supervised 

visitation between the child and the mother once a week for 

two hours and that an evidentiary forensic medical 

examination be performed. Lastly, the court issued a 

warrant of apprehension and set the matter for another 

conference to take place nearly a month later, on October 10, 

2018.

Two days after the hearing, Ms. Rieman learned of its 

occurrence and that there was an active warrant of 
8 RIEMAN V. VASQUEZ

apprehension for K. B. Shortly after learning these facts, 

Ms. Rieman and the family provided CFS with additional 

medical records regarding K. B. from the prior week. 

However, representatives of CFS informed Ms. Rieman that 

the issue was out of their hands, as CFS could no longer 

withdraw the warrant. Three days later, Ms. Rieman took 

K. B. to LLUMC. At the hospital, Ms. Rieman was forced 

to relinquish custody of K. B. to a law enforcement officer 

who arrived at the hospital pursuant to the warrant of 

apprehension. K. B. was not returned to Ms. Rieman’s 

custody until November 20, 2018, almost two months later. 

Two months after that, the court dismissed the dependency 

proceedings upon CFS’s request. Because the proceedings

were dismissed, the California Court of Appeal held that Ms. 

Rieman’s appeals of the Juvenile Court’s orders were moot.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On February 24, 2020, the Riemans filed suit in federal 

district court pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In their first 

amended complaint, the Riemans alleged that Vazquez and 

Johnson, among others, violated the Riemans’ Fourth and 

Fourteenth Amendment rights (1) by failing to provide them 

with notice of the detention hearing and (2) by providing 

false information to the Juvenile Court about why Ms. 

Rieman was not noticed for the hearing. On July 12, 2022, 

the parties filed dueling summary judgment motions. In 

their motion, Vazquez and Johnson argued to the district 

court that they are entitled to absolute immunity for their 

quasi-prosecutorial decisions in instituting the juvenile 

dependency proceedings and entitled to qualified immunity 

because they did not violate any clearly established 

constitutional rights.
RIEMAN V. VASQUEZ 9

On November 1, 2022, the district court held that 

Vazquez and Johnson were not entitled to absolute or 

qualified immunity. The court also granted the Riemans’ 

motion for summary judgment “as to [their] first and second 

claims for violation of [their] Fourth and Fourteenth 

Amendment rights” on the grounds that Vazquez and 

Johnson failed to provide the Riemans with notice of the 

detention hearing and engaged in judicial deception. 

Vazquez and Johnson timely appealed.

JURISDICTION AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 to 

review Vazquez and Johnson’s interlocutory appeal of the 

district court’s summary judgment order denying them 

absolute and qualified immunity. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 

U.S. 511, 525–26, 530 (1985). We review de novo denials 

of absolute and qualified immunity. Botello v. Gammick,

413 F.3d 971, 975 (9th Cir. 2005) (absolute immunity), cert. 

denied, 546 U.S. 1208 (2006); Robinson v. Prunty, 249 F.3d 

862, 865–66 (9th Cir. 2001) (qualified immunity). Where

disputed facts are relevant to the denial of qualified 

immunity, however, we determine whether the denial was 

appropriate by assuming that the version of material facts as 

asserted by the nonmoving party is correct. Jeffers v. 

Gomez, 267 F.3d 895, 903 (9th Cir. 2001).

ANALYSIS

I. Vazquez and Johnson Are Not Entitled to Absolute 

Immunity.

Vazquez and Johnson contend they are entitled to 

absolute immunity because they are being sued for actions 

taken in their quasi-prosecutorial role as social workers. 

They argue that “the fundamental question” in evaluating 
10 RIEMAN V. VASQUEZ

their claim to absolute immunity is “whether conduct 

relate[s] to the initiation of a [juvenile] dependency 

proceeding,” and that the conduct they are being sued for 

“unquestionably is.” They also emphasize that the 

discretionary nature of how they were supposed to give 

notice of the detention hearing also weighs in favor of their 

being entitled to absolute immunity.

Defendants in § 1983 suits are generally entitled to only

immunities that existed at common law. See Imbler v. 

Pachtman, 542 U.S. 409, 417–18 (1976). Courts have thus 

“granted state actors absolute immunity only for those 

functions that were critical to the judicial process itself,” 

such as “‘initiating a prosecution.’” Miller v. Gammie, 335 

F.3d 889, 896 (9th Cir. 2003) (en banc) (quoting Imbler, 424 

U.S. at 431), overruled on other grounds, Sanchez v. 

Mayorkas, 141 S. Ct. 1809 (2021). It therefore follows that 

social workers may enjoy absolute immunity from suit when 

they make “discretionary, quasi-prosecutorial decisions to 

institute court dependency proceedings to take custody away 

from parents.” Id. at 898. 

However, social workers “are not entitled to absolute 

immunity from claims that they fabricated evidence during 

an investigation or made false statements in a dependency 

petition affidavit that they signed under penalty of perjury, 

because such actions aren’t similar to discretionary decisions 

about whether to prosecute.” Beltran v. Santa Clara Cnty., 

514 F.3d 906, 908 (9th Cir. 2008) (per curiam). Put simply,

“as prosecutors and others investigating criminal matters 

have no absolute immunity for their investigatory conduct,” 

it follows that “social workers conducting investigations 

have no such immunity” as well. Id. at 908–09. 
RIEMAN V. VASQUEZ 11

In this case, had the Riemans sued Vazquez and Johnson 

for their discretionary decision to institute juvenile 

dependency proceedings to take custody of K. B. away from 

Ms. Rieman, they likely would have been entitled to absolute 

immunity since that decision is inherently prosecutorial. See 

Miller, 335 F.3d at 898. However, the Riemans’ suit did not 

challenge that quasi-prosecutorial decision. Rather, the 

Riemans sued Vazquez and Johnson for their failure to 

provide Ms. Rieman with notice of the detention hearing, 

despite knowing how to contact her and her parents, and 

their acts of judicial deception regarding Ms. Rieman’s 

whereabouts.

The crux of Vazquez and Johnson’s argument is that 

since they are being sued for conduct that “relate[s] to the 

initiation of a dependency proceeding,” they are absolutely 

immune from suit. However, that argument relies upon an 

overly broad conception of absolute immunity’s scope. As 

we noted in Beltran, a social worker is “not entitled to 

absolute immunity from claims that they . . . made false 

statements in a dependency petition affidavit . . . because 

such actions aren’t similar to discretionary decisions about 

whether to prosecute.” 514 F.3d at 908. Surely, the making 

of such statements in a dependency petition affidavit 

“relate[s]” in some broad sense “to the initiation of a 

dependency proceeding,” as Vazquez and Johnson contend, 

but such a loose relation is not enough to render those actions 

absolutely immune from suit. The actions themselves must 

be “similar to discretionary decisions about whether to 

prosecute.” Beltran, 514 F.3d at 908. Here, neither the 

actions nor omissions for which Vazquez and Johnson are 

being sued—i.e., providing false information to the Juvenile 

Court and failing to give notice of the hearing—are “similar 

to discretionary decisions about whether to prosecute.” Id. 
12 RIEMAN V. VASQUEZ

Accordingly, Vazquez and Johnson do not enjoy absolute 

immunity from suit.

Moreover, Vazquez and Johnson’s related argument that 

“the method of notice” is “discretionary,” does not save their 

defenses of absolute immunity. The fact that social workers 

have some discretion in how they give notice of a detention 

hearing to a parent does not render decisions regarding the 

method of notice “similar to discretionary decisions about 

whether to prosecute.” Beltran, 514 F.3d at 908. And even 

so, the Riemans have not sued Vazquez and Johnson for their 

method of notice; the Riemans have sued them for failing to 

provide any notice at all. The parties agree that giving notice 

of a detention hearing is mandatory under the law. It follows 

that giving notice is non-discretionary and very much unlike 

the discretionary decision to initiate a prosecution. See 

Beltran, 514 F.3d at 908; cf. Antoine v. Byers & Anderson, 

Inc., 508 U.S. 429, 436 (1993) (denying absolute immunity 

to a court reporter who was “required by statute to ‘recor[d] 

verbatim’ court proceedings in their entirety”). 

Accordingly, absolute immunity does not apply to the 

Riemans’ claim that Vazquez and Johnson failed to give 

them notice of the detention hearing as such notice was 

mandatory. We therefore affirm the district court’s order 

denying Vazquez and Johnson absolute immunity.

II. Vazquez and Johnson Are Not Entitled to Qualified 

Immunity.

Vazquez and Johnson also contend that they are entitled 

to qualified immunity for their conduct relating to the 

juvenile dependency proceedings. First, they argue that their 

representations to the Juvenile Court about Ms. Rieman’s 

whereabouts do not amount to judicial deception, and even 

if they did, the constitutional violation was not clearly 
RIEMAN V. VASQUEZ 13

established when they made the statements, and thus 

qualified immunity applies.

Second, Vazquez and Johnson argue on appeal that they 

did their best to give Ms. Rieman notice of the detention 

hearing through their attempts to serve the temporary 

detention warrant, and therefore they did not violate her due 

process rights when they failed to contact her about the 

detention hearing. They suggest that because no court has 

decided these exact set of circumstances regarding notice, 

the law is not clearly established, and thus qualified 

immunity applies to their failure to give actual notice of the 

detention hearing.

Qualified immunity shields government actors from civil 

liability pursuant to § 1983 if “their conduct does not violate 

clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which 

a reasonable person would have known.” Benavidez v. Cnty. 

of San Diego, 993 F.3d 1134, 1151 (9th Cir. 2021). “In 

determining whether an officer is entitled to qualified 

immunity, [courts] consider (1) whether there has been a 

violation of a constitutional right; and (2) whether that right 

was clearly established at the time of the officer’s alleged 

misconduct.” Lal v. California, 746 F.3d 1112, 1116 (9th 

Cir. 2014). A clearly established constitutional right “must 

be particularized to the facts of the case.” Davis v. United 

States, 854 F.3d 594, 599 (2017) (cleaned up). “Because the 

focus is on whether the officer had fair notice that her 

conduct was unlawful, reasonableness is judged against the 

backdrop of the law at the time of the conduct.” Kisela v. 

Hughes, 138 S. Ct. 1148, 1152 (2018).
14 RIEMAN V. VASQUEZ

A. Vazquez and Johnson Are Not Entitled to 

Qualified Immunity from Suit for Failing to 

Provide Notice of the Detention Hearing.

Vazquez and Johnson do not dispute the district court’s 

conclusion that Ms. Rieman had a constitutionally protected 

due process right to receive notice of (and an opportunity to 

be heard at) the detention hearing where CFS sought custody 

of her child. Rather, they suggest that they did not ultimately 

violate her rights because they “attempted personal service 

of the detention warrant four times over the course of two 

days,” and Ms. Rieman evaded those service attempts, 

thereby excusing the formal notice requirement.

However, in the very same sentence in their opening 

brief, Vazquez and Johnson acknowledge that all their 

service attempts took place “before [they] decid[ed] to 

initiate a dependency proceeding.” As the Riemans 

correctly point out in their answering brief, “[t]here is no 

date [for the detention hearing] on the [temporary] 

[d]etention [w]arrant[,] [n]or could there have been, since 

the [d]etention [h]earing was not scheduled until after the 

attempts were made to serve the [d]etention [w]arrant.” 

Therefore, Vazquez and Johnson’s argument that their 

unsuccessful attempts to serve the temporary detention 

warrant somehow excused or remedied their failure to call 

or otherwise notify Ms. Rieman of the detention hearing is 

unavailing. The district court was therefore correct to 

conclude that Vazquez and Johnson failed to give Ms. 

Rieman notice of the detention hearing, thereby violating her 

right to such notice.

A parent’s “whereabouts” being “unknown” only 

excuses the notice requirement after “there has been a good 

faith attempt to provide notice to a parent” of the detention 
RIEMAN V. VASQUEZ 15

hearing. In re Justice P., 19 Cal. Rptr. 3d 801, 806 (Cal. 

App. 2004). It is undisputed that no such attempt was ever 

made. That the parties dispute whether the Riemans were 

aware of the temporary detention warrant and were therefore 

evading it by hiding out in a different county is immaterial. 

Vazquez and Johnson knew how to contact Ms. Rieman 

about the detention hearing, but they chose not to even try.

To the extent that Vazquez and Johnson imply that Ms. 

Rieman’s right to notice was not “clearly established” at the 

time they violated it, that argument is foreclosed by the fact 

that long before September 2018, “it was clear that a parent 

. . . could not be summarily deprived of th[e care and] 

custody [of his children] without notice and a hearing, except 

when the children were in imminent danger.”1 Ram v. 

Rubin, 118 F.3d 1306, 1310 (9th Cir. 1997) (citing Caldwell 

v. LeFaver, 928 F.2d 331, 333 (9th Cir. 1991)). Vazquez 

and Johnson’s argument is further undermined by the fact 

that long before September 2018, it was clear under 

California law that after a social worker files a dependency 

petition, she must give notice to the child’s parents “as soon 

as possible . . . .” Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 290.1(c). 

“Service of the notice shall be written or oral,” id. § 290.1(e), 

and the notice must include “[t]he date, time, and place of 

the hearing,” id. § 290.1(d)(1). And the means of giving 

notice to the parent “must be such as one desirous of actually 

informing the [parent] might reasonably adopt to accomplish 

1 Vazquez and Johnson never asked the Juvenile Court to excuse the 

notice requirement because K. B. was in imminent danger. Instead, they 

represented to the court that Ms. Rieman was “not noticed” for the 

hearing because her “whereabouts [were] unknown.” Vazquez and 

Johnson only discussed “substantial danger to [K. B.’s] physical health” 

with respect to why they believed the court should ultimately order his 

removal from Ms. Rieman’s custody and care.
16 RIEMAN V. VASQUEZ

it.” In re Antonio E., 144 Cal. Rptr. 466, 472 (Cal. Ct. App. 

1978). Considering these clear statements of law, we

conclude that “any reasonable official in [Vazquez or 

Johnson’s] positions would have understood that he was 

violating” Ms. Rieman’s due process rights by failing to 

provide her with notice of the detention hearing. Kisela, 138 

S. Ct. at 1153. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s 

denial of qualified immunity with respect to Vazquez and 

Johnson’s failure to provide Ms. Rieman with notice of the 

hearing.

B. Vazquez and Johnson Are Not Entitled to 

Qualified Immunity for Their Misrepresentation 

to the Juvenile Court About Why Ms. Rieman 

Was Not Noticed for the Hearing.

An individual has a well-established constitutional right 

to be free from deception in the presentation of evidence 

during juvenile dependency proceedings. Greene v. 

Camreta, 588 F.3d 1011, 1034–35 (9th Cir. 2009), vacated 

in part on other grounds, 563 U.S. 692 (2011); see also 

Whitaker v. Garcetti, 486 F.3d 572, 581 (9th Cir. 2007) (“A 

seizure conducted pursuant to a warrant obtained by judicial 

deception violates the Fourth Amendment.”); Costanich v. 

Dep’t of Soc. & Health Servs., 627 F.3d 1101, 1108 (9th Cir. 

2010) (“[D]eliberately fabricating evidence in civil child 

abuse proceedings violates the Due Process clause of the 

Fourteenth Amendment when a liberty or property interest is 

at stake . . . .”). “[G]overnment perjury and the knowing use 

of false evidence are absolutely and obviously irreconcilable 

with the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of Due Process 

in [the] courts.” Hardwick v. Cnty. of Orange, 844 F.3d 

1112, 1119 (9th Cir. 2017). “There are no circumstances in 

a dependency proceeding that would permit government 

officials to bear false witness against a parent.” Id. 
RIEMAN V. VASQUEZ 17

To support a § 1983 claim that a social worker engaged 

in judicial deception, a plaintiff must show “(1) a 

misrepresentation or omission (2) made deliberately or with 

a reckless disregard for the truth, that was (3) material to the 

judicial decision.” Scanlon v. Cnty. of Los Angeles, 92 F.4th 

781, 799 (9th Cir. 2024). Misrepresentations or omissions 

are “‘material’ . . . if the Juvenile Court would have declined 

to issue the order had [the social worker] been truthful.” 

Greene, 588 F.3d at 1035.

Here, it is undisputed that, despite having Ms. Rieman’s 

correct telephone number, and despite the Riemans’ repeated 

attempts to contact CFS, Vazquez and Johnson never 

attempted to call Ms. Rieman or otherwise inform her or her 

family about the time and place of the detention hearing. 

Had they told the Juvenile Court that they did not provide 

notice to Ms. Rieman because they had never attempted to 

do so, the Juvenile Court could not (and would not) have 

proceeded with the hearing and ordered that K. B. be 

removed from Ms. Rieman’s care and custody.2 Therefore, 

Vazquez and Johnson’s representation to the Juvenile Court 

that Ms. Rieman was “not noticed” because her 

“whereabouts [were] unknown” was materially false.3

Vazquez and Johnson’s related argument that qualified 

immunity should still apply because “it is not ‘clearly 

established’ that it would be a due process violation to claim 

a parent’s whereabouts were unknown based on the facts as 

2 Counsel for Vazquez and Johnson conceded this point at oral argument.

3

In the parties’ joint statement of undisputed facts, Vazquez and Johnson

conceded this interpretation of the detention report, i.e., they “informed 

the [c]ourt in the [d]etention [r]eport that [Ms. Rieman] was ‘not noticed’ 

for the [d]etention [h]earing because her ‘whereabouts [were] 

unknown.’”
18 RIEMAN V. VASQUEZ

known to [them],” is foreclosed by our decision in 

Hardwick, 844 F.3d 1112. In that case, we observed that 

“general statements of the law are not inherently incapable 

of giving fair and clear warning, and in some instances a 

general constitutional rule already identified in the 

decisional law may apply with obvious clarity to the specific 

conduct in question, even though the very action in question 

has not previously been held unlawful.” Id. at 1117 (cleaned 

up). The “salient question . . . is whether the state of the law” 

at the time of their misconduct gave the social workers “fair 

warning that their [misconduct] was unconstitutional.” Id.

(cleaned up). 

Here, a reasonable social worker in Vazquez and 

Johnson’s shoes would have understood, based on prior 

decisional law, that providing incomplete and false 

information to the Juvenile Court to convince the court the 

social worker had satisfied the due process notice 

requirement constitutes judicial deception. Long before 

September 2018, it was clear that “[t]here are no 

circumstances in a dependency proceeding that would 

permit government officials to bear false witness against a 

parent.” Id. at 1119; see also Scanlon, 92 F.4th at 805 

(observing that “[t]he right to be free from judicial 

deception” in child custody matters “was clearly established 

prior to 2016”). That the Riemans have failed to identify a 

case that specifically evaluates “the very action in question” 

does not change the analysis. Hardwick, 844 F.3d at 1117. 

It is obvious that the prohibition against bearing false 

witness applies to representations that a social worker makes 

about a parent’s whereabouts, especially when those 

representations will determine whether a juvenile court will 

proceed with a hearing to remove a child from that parent’s 

custody without hearing from the parent first.
RIEMAN V. VASQUEZ 19

The fact that the right to be free from judicial deception 

arises in part under the Fourth Amendment also does not 

save Vazquez and Johnson’s qualified immunity defense. 

While it is true that specificity in past decisional law is 

especially important in the Fourth Amendment context 

where law enforcement officers often have to make quick 

decisions with significant consequences, that principle more 

appropriately applies in excessive force cases arising under 

the Fourth Amendment. See id. at 1119. In this case, 

Vazquez and Johnson’s acts of judicial deception “were not 

made under pressing circumstances requiring prompt action, 

or those providing ambiguous or conflicting guidance,” such 

as when a law enforcement officer is faced with a sudden 

threat of deadly force in a public setting. Id. Rather, 

Vazquez and Johnson were able to draft the juvenile 

dependency petition and detention report over the course of 

several days and had ample time to attempt to contact Ms. 

Rieman about the time and place of the detention hearing, 

which was mandatory under the law. Accordingly, we 

affirm the district court’s order denying Vazquez and 

Johnson qualified immunity from suit for their 

representations to the Juvenile Court about Ms. Rieman’s 

whereabouts.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district 

court’s order denying absolute and qualified immunity to 

Vazquez and Johnson.