Opinion ID: 799761
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Removal of the Southerland Children: Due Process and Unreasonable Seizure Claims

Text: The panel concludes that at the time of the challenged removal, it was clearly established under both the Due Process Clause and the Fourth Amendment that, absent exigent circumstances, Woo could not remove the Southerland children from their father's home without a court removal order. See Southerland v. City of N.Y., 680 F.3d at 149-50. To the extent the right at stake is procedural due process, the panel references dual underlying liberty interests, one, by parents `in the care custody and management of their children,' id. at 142 (quoting Tenenbaum v. Williams, 193 F.3d at 593); and the other, by children, `in not being dislocated from the emotional attachments that derive from the intimacy of daily family association,' id. (quoting Kia P. v. McIntyre, 235 F.3d at 759). The problem with the panel's due process analysis, as I noted at the outset of this opinion, is that it derives entirely from cases in which the challenged intrusion into family liberty was based on suspicions of abuse or neglect that were eventually shown to be unfounded, see Kia P. v. McIntyre, 235 F.3d at 753; Tenenbaum v. Williams, 193 F.3d at 587; Hurlman v. Rice, 927 F.2d at 76, or at least were never confirmed in a state judicial proceeding, see Duchesne v. Sugarman, 566 F.2d at 823. In each of these cases, parents and children who had maintained a recognizable family bond were allowed to sue for intrusions that allegedly violated their procedural due process rights. The panel cites to no case, however, in which an adjudicated abusive parent, or the children he abused, have been permitted to pursue claims that officials who stopped the abuse did so in violation of procedural due process. [5] Nor does the panel explain why the cited precedent should apply equally in such circumstances. In fact, it should not. When, as here, a state court adjudicates a parent to have been so abusive of his children as to deny him further custody, it effectively finds that the parent, by his abuse, has himself severed the familial bond that was the source of any liberty interest for which he and his children might claim procedural due process rights. Thus, it is not the Family Court's abuse determination that extinguished any liberty interest these plaintiffs may once have derived from a common family bond but, rather, Southerland's actual abuse that did so. For this reason, I would conclude that an adjudicated abusive parent, such as Southerland, cannot sue the caseworker who rescued children from further abuse on either substantive or procedural due process grounds. To hold otherwise would imply that an abusive parent, or abused children, have a liberty interest in continued abuse. [6] The conclusion here urged would foreclose due process removal claims against child welfare workers in only a small category of cases: those in which a parent has been adjudicated so abusive or neglectful as to be denied custody. The conclusion finds an analogy in our precedent holding that criminal defendants, once convicted, will not be heard to challenge whether their arrest was supported by probable cause to believe they had committed the crime of conviction. See Cameron v. Fogarty, 806 F.2d at 388-89. A number of our sister circuits have similarly ruled, citing favorably to Cameron. See Howard v. Dickerson, 34 F.3d 978, 981 n. 2 (10th Cir.1994); Hoffman v. Moss, 929 F.2d 692 (Table), 1991 WL 41503, at  (4th Cir. 1991) (unpublished opinion); Malady v. Crunk, 902 F.2d 10, 11 (8th Cir.1990); Walker v. Schaeffer, 854 F.2d 138, 143 (6th Cir.1988); see also King v. Goldsmith, 897 F.2d 885, 886 (7th Cir.1990) (assuming, without deciding, that Cameron was correctly decided). But see Rose v. Bartle, 871 F.2d 331, 351 (3d Cir.1989) (noting, in dictum, doubts as to policy determinations underlying Cameron ); Brumfield v. Jones, 849 F.2d 152, 155 n. 4 (5th Cir.1988) (noting, without resolving, possible tension between Cameron and Brown v. Edwards, 721 F.2d 1442, 1447-48 & n. 8 (5th Cir. 1984)). Cameron itself derived from City of Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 U.S. 247, 101 S.Ct. 2748, 69 L.Ed.2d 616 (1981), in which the Supreme Court recognized that Congress, in enacting § 1983, expressed no intention to do away with the immunities afforded state officials at common law. Id. at 258, 101 S.Ct. 2748; see Filarsky v. Delia, 132 S.Ct. at 1661-62. The common lawwith common sense had long recognized that once guilt is proved, the injury to a defendant's personal liberty caused solely by prematurity of arrest is, of itself, insubstantial, and therefore not legally cognizable. Cameron v. Fogarty, 806 F.2d at 388. Common law had no occasion to apply this principle to child removal proceedings, a legal innovation arising largely in the nineteenth century. See Naomi Cahn, Perfect Substitutes or the Real Thing?, 52 Duke L.J. 1077, 1090-91 (2003) (dating state removal of abused and neglected children in the United States to late nineteenth century); Developments in the Law: The Constitution and the Family, 93 Harv. L.Rev. 1156, 1221-22 (1980) (recognizing that by early nineteenth century, some English chancery courts exercised parens patriae power to remove children from custody of abusive or neglectful parents). Nevertheless, Cameron's reasoning and the common law defense of conviction apply with equal force to child custody determinations. Once a parent is found guilty of abuse and neglect serious enough to warrant a court denial of custody, any injury caused solely by prematurity of [the removal of his children] is, of itself, insubstantial. Cameron v. Fogarty, 806 F.2d at 388. [7] Indeed, the injury of premature removal to an abusive parent may be less substantial than the injury of premature arrest to a convicted felon. While a felon's interest in his own liberty is exclusive to himself, a parent's liberty interest in a family relationship is shared with his children and based on an expectation of parental care, not abuse. Thus, an adjudicated abusive parent's claimed liberty interest in continuing an abusive relationship with his children is certainly de minimis, if not non-existent. The same conclusion obtains with respect to abused children claiming any liberty interest in remaining in what has been adjudicated to have been an abusive relationship. This ground for affirming the district court's grant of summary judgment on plaintiffs' due process claim would extend Cameron, a matter that merits careful consideration. But it would be far worse to conclude, as the panel does without any consideration of Cameron's reasoning, that adjudicated abusive parents and the children they abused can maintain constitutional claims against child welfare workers for prematurely stopping the abuse. Although defendants themselves did not raise a Cameron -based objection to suit, a court may affirm summary judgment for any reason supported in the record. See Lee v. Kemna, 534 U.S. 362, 391, 122 S.Ct. 877, 151 L.Ed.2d 820 (2002) ([I]t is well settled that an appellate tribunal may affirm a trial court's judgment on any ground supported by the record.); 10 Ellicott Square Court Corp. v. Mountain Valley Indem. Co., 634 F.3d 112, 125 (2d Cir.2011). Such an affirmance is particularly warranted where the challenged judgment is based on qualified immunity, the very purpose of which is to permit the defeat of insubstantial claims without resort to trial. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. at 813, 102 S.Ct. 2727; accord Jenkins v. City of N.Y., 478 F.3d 76, 87 n. 9 (2d Cir.2007). No different conclusion should obtain because the Southerland children also cast their removal as an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment. The panel assumes that the children could persuade a reasonable jury that it was constitutionally unreasonable for Woo to remove them from the Southerland home without a court order in the absence of evidence that they were in imminent danger of harm on those premises. See Southerland v. City of N.Y., 680 F.3d at 161-62. [8] But once the Family Court, after a full trial, determined that the children were at risk of such harm in their father's custody, thereby precluding their return, any Fourth Amendment injury caused solely by prematurity of [the removal] is, of itself, insubstantial and, therefore, should not be recognized at law. Cameron v. Fogarty, 806 F.2d at 388. In short, once a home environment is adjudicated to have been abusive, no responsible society would accept as objectively reasonable children's claims that they had a cognizable constitutional right not to be prematurely removed from the premises. Cf. California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35, 39, 108 S.Ct. 1625, 100 L.Ed.2d 30 (1988) (collecting cases recognizing that Fourth Amendment protects only subjective expectations of privacy that society accepts as objectively reasonable). Even if plaintiffs could state a cognizable constitutional claim under either the Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment with respect to the children's removalwhich they cannotthe qualified immunity question would not be whether a reasonable jury could conclude that the children were not at imminent risk of harm but, rather, whether a reasonable caseworker in Woo's position could have concluded that they were. See Messerschmidt v. Millender, 132 S.Ct. at 1246; Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. at 341, 106 S.Ct. 1092; Walczyk v. Rio, 496 F.3d at 154 (requiring assessment of qualified immunity in particular factual context rather than in abstract). Even setting aside the considerable evidence of neglect that Woo says he confronted upon entering the Southerland home and that Southerland disputes, see Southerland v. City of N.Y., 680 F.3d at 134-35, some caseworkers of reasonable competence could conclude from the otherwise undisputed evidence that one or more of the Southerland children were at risk of imminent harm in their father's custody. As already noted, before entering Southerland's home, caseworkers knew from school counselors that one of Southerland's children, Ciara, had expressed thoughts of suicide and engaged in self-destructive behavior. Whatever the source of Ciara's troubles, Southerland had not secured care for her and was, in fact, dismissive of her need for care. See id. at 140-41. To the extent Southerland sought to excuse his neglect by claiming that Ciara had left home, this cannot alter the fact that caseworkers were looking for an at-risk child who was in Southerland's legal custody. That the custodial parent purported not to know the whereabouts of such a child would heighten, not minimize, a reasonable caseworker's concern as to Southerland's ability to care for children in his custody. That concern would be magnified, moreover, when, upon entry into the Southerland home, caseworkers found a child on the premises, nine-year-old Venus Southerland, with an untreated puncture wound to her foot from stepping on a nail, and saw no sign that Southerland planned to secure the treatment necessary to protect the child against tetanus. See Ex. D to Silverberg Decl. at 6, ECF No. 168-7. In these circumstances, and in the absence of clearly established law to the contrary, reasonable caseworkers could certainly have viewed Venus as facing imminent serious harm if she was not removed from the premises and promptly afforded medical care. See Messerschmidt v. Millender, 132 S.Ct. at 1245; Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. at 341, 106 S.Ct. 1092. Thus, Woo is at a minimum entitled to qualified immunity for removing Venus from Southerland's home. As for Woo's removal of the other Southerland children, this court appears never to have ruled as to whether the risk of imminent harm required to effect a warrantless removal is child-specific. We have provided no guidance to a caseworker who discovers one injured, malnourished, or severely beaten child in need of immediate care as to whether (1) he can effect a warrantless removal of all children found in the same household, or (2) he can remove only the one child and must leave other children behind. Tenenbaum might be understood to instruct caseworkers not to attempt to make such decisions if there is time to seek judicial authorization. See Tenenbaum v. Williams, 193 F.3d at 596. But Tenenbaum was not decided at the time of the removal at issue and, even now, it does not tell caseworkers who do not have time to secure judicial authorization what removal decisions will be lawful and unlawful with respect to the removal of a number of children when a risk of imminent harm has been identified as to one. Thus, in June 1997, when Woo removed the Southerland children from their father's home, it was possible for officers of reasonable competence to disagree as to whether the discovery that Venus Southerland was at risk of serious imminent harm unless removed for prompt medical treatment sufficed to support the warrantless removal of all children in Southerland's home. Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. at 341, 106 S.Ct. 1092; see Walczyk v. Rio, 496 F.3d at 154. In the face of such possible reasonable disagreement that is, in the absence of a clearly established statutory or constitutional rule of which a reasonable caseworker would have been aware, see Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727Woo is entitled to qualified immunity even from cognizable claims. This is, however, a secondary point. For the reasons stated, the court should conclude that plaintiffs state no cognizable due process or Fourth Amendment claims in connection with the challenged removal. By analogy to Cameron v. Fogarty, 806 F.2d at 388-89, the court should rule that an adjudicated abusive father and the children he abused cannot seek damages from a child welfare worker for prematurely removing the children from the abusive home.