Opinion ID: 2995350
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Judgment is entered against Stacey J.

Text: Morrell in favor of John D. Howell for fees and costs herein of $3,000.00. After the order was entered, Morrell filed a special appearance contesting jurisdiction. At about the same time, David Morrell’s active duty assignment in El Paso ended, and the family moved to Stacey Morrell’s parents’ home in Indiana while David Morrell sought new employment. There, Stacey Morrell filed a petition to establish paternity, and Howell responded with a motion to dismiss, relying on the New Mexico court’s prior assertion of jurisdiction and asserting that he had already commenced another paternity action in South Carolina (where Howell resided). While the Indiana action was pending, David Morrell secured a job in Illinois, and the Morrells moved there with Joshua. Howell then traveled to Illinois and filed the New Mexico order with the Will County Circuit Court clerk. Howell appeared that same day on an emergency motion before the Will County Circuit Court and requested enforcement of the New Mexico order by way of a body attachment (a civil writ ordering the seizure of a person). The Illinois judge refused to issue the writ without notice to Stacey Morrell. Undeterred, Howell went to the Will County State’s Attorney’s office and spoke to defendant Judy DeVriendt, an assistant state’s attorney. DeVriendt telephoned the local police and told them to take custody of Joshua pursuant to the New Mexico order. When the local police went to Stacey Morrell’s home, she showed them pleadings from the Indiana action. After consulting with their superiors, the police decided not to take custody of Joshua and advised Howell that they would not take further action without an order from the Will County court. DeVriendt then consulted defendant Philip Mock, chief of the state’s attorney’s civil division. Mock reviewed the New Mexico order and the docket sheet from the hearing before the Will County Circuit Court, which showed that the court had denied Howell’s emergency motion for a body attachment. Mock then read the Illinois Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act (UCCJA), 750 Ill. Comp. Stat. 35/1, et seq., which governs the recognition in Illinois of custody determinations of other states. He also checked the circuit court’s computer database to determine whether any other orders or judgments involving these parties had been filed in Will County, and directed his subordinates to verify that the New Mexico order had not been vacated. Mock concluded that the New Mexico order was valid and directed DeVriendt to have the Will County Sheriff’s Department pick up the child and give him to Howell. Defendant Richard Ackerson, an investigator with the Will County Sheriff’s Department, was assigned to the case. According to Ackerson, DeVriendt showed him the New Mexico order and paperwork from the Indiana action, told him that the New Mexico order had been validated by an Illinois judge, and directed him to arrest Morrell if she did not cooperate. Acting on her instructions, Ackerson and two deputy sheriffs, defendants Richard Holman and Keith Ploense, went to the Morrells’ home. As she had when the police visited a few days earlier, Morrell showed the sheriff’s deputies the paperwork from the Indiana action. She also asked them to speak by telephone with her lawyer in Indiana, who told them that the Indiana action had superceded the New Mexico order. Ackerson replied that he had instructions to serve the New Mexico order, which was the only one that had been validated in Illinois. Morrell gave Joshua to the deputies--after being threatened with arrest if she refused-- and the deputies gave the eight-month-old infant to Howell. Howell immediately returned to South Carolina with Joshua. Later that day, Morrell appeared before another judge in Will County, who ordered Mock to retrieve the baby. Joshua was reunited with his mother four days later. B.The District Court Proceedings Morrell filed suit on behalf of herself and Joshua claiming a deprivation, without due process, of their liberty interests in familial relations protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. After discovery, all parties moved for summary judgment. Without reaching the question of whether there had been a constitutional violation, the district court held that the deputies were absolutely immune from liability for damages arising from their execution of the court order. With respect to the assistant state’s attorneys, the court held that reasonable persons in their position would not have known that ordering the child to be seized was unconstitutional, and that they were therefore entitled to qualified immunity from damages. The court therefore granted the defendants’ motions for summary judgment, denied the plaintiff’s cross motion for summary judgment, and entered judgment for the defendants.