Opinion ID: 800656
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Evolution of the Southerland Children's Theory of Liability

Text: The Southerland Children originally characterized this constitutional claim as arising under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically, they alleged that Woo lacked a reasonable basis for removing the [Southerland] Children from plaintiff's home without a court order, and that [i]n so doing, Woo deprived the [Southerland] Children of their substantive due process liberty interests in being in the care and custody of their father and natural guardian, guaranteed to them by the [F]ourteenth [A]mendment. Am. Compl. ¶ 51. They relied upon the Fourteenth Amendment notwithstanding our observation in Southerland I that [t]he children's claims for unreasonable seizure would proceed under the Fourth Amendment [as applied to the states by the Fourteenth] rather than the substantive component of the Due Process Clause. Southerland I, 4 Fed.Appx. at 37 n. 2 (citing Kia P., 235 F.3d at 757-58). By the time of the summary judgment proceedings after remand, the Southerland Children appeared to recognize that their claim did indeed arise under the Fourth Amendment. See Southerland Children's Mem. of Law in Opp'n to Mot. for Summ. J. at 16-20 (Children's Dist. Ct. Br.) (Dkt. No. 184), Southerland v. City of N.Y ., No. 99-cv-3329 (E.D.N.Y. Dec. 29, 2006) (arguing the Southerland Children's substantive due process claim as though it arose under the Fourth Amendment). And in its opinion resolving the summary judgment motion, the district court correctly noted that the Southerland Children's substantive due process constitutional claim was governed by the Fourth Amendment. See Southerland II, 521 F.Supp.2d at 230 n. 24 (citing Southerland I, 4 Fed.Appx. at 37 n. 2). The Southerland Children also narrowed their theory of liability as to the legal substance of that claim. Originally, they pled that the removal was unconstitutional both because it lacked a reasonable basis, Am. Compl. ¶ 51, and because the removal had the effect of separating them from Southerland, thereby depriving them of their liberty interests in being in the care and custody of their father, id. In effect, the Southerland Children thus pled both that their warrantless seizure was unreasonable because it was not supported by an exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement (no reasonable basis), and that the seizure was unreasonable insofar as it burdened the Southerland Children's substantive due process right to be[ ] in the care and custody of their father. [25] In their submission opposing the defendants' summary judgment motion, however, the Southerland Children appeared to have abandoned the theory that the seizure unreasonably burdened their due process right to their father's care and custody. In other words, they no longer challenged the reasonableness of the effect or duration of their removal as a violation of their rights to substantive due process. Instead, they argued only that the removal was unconstitutional as an unlawful seizure because the act of removal itself was unsupported by sufficient legal justification: Woo could not demonstrate the existence of either parental consent or exigent circumstances that would justify the act of removal absent prior judicial authorization. See generally Children's Dist. Ct. Br. at 16-20.