Opinion ID: 218592
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Overview of Constitutional Law in the Context of the State's Removal of Children from Their Home

Text: As we observed in a decision post-dating the events at issue in these appeals, [p]arents ... have a constitutionally protected liberty interest in the care, custody and management of their children. Tenenbaum, 193 F.3d at 593; see also Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 65-66, 120 S.Ct. 2054, 147 L.Ed.2d 49 (2000) (collecting cases concerning the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children). [C]hildren have a parallel constitutionally protected liberty interest in not being dislocated from the emotional attachments that derive from the intimacy of daily family association. Kia P. v. McIntyre, 235 F.3d 749, 759 (2d Cir.2000) (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 820, 122 S.Ct. 51, 151 L.Ed.2d 21 (2001); see also Duchesne v. Sugarman, 566 F.2d 817, 825 (2d Cir.1977) (Th[e] right to the preservation of family integrity encompasses the reciprocal rights of both parent and children.). The state's removal of a child from his or her parent may give rise to a variety of cognizable constitutional claims. First, both the parents and the children may have a cause of action for violation of the Fourteenth Amendment under a theory of denial of procedural due process. The Fourteenth Amendment imposes a requirement that except in emergency circumstances, judicial process must be accorded both parent and child before removal of the child from his or her parent's custody may be effected. See, e.g., Kia P., 235 F.3d at 759-60; Tenenbaum, 193 F.3d at 593-94; Duchesne, 566 F.2d at 825-26. Both Southerland and the Southerland Children have asserted such a procedural due process claim against Woo in this case. Second, a parent may also bring suit under a theory of violation of his or her right to substantive due process. Southerland does so here. Parents have a substantive right under the Due Process Clause to remain together [with their children] without the coercive interference of the awesome power of the state. Tenenbaum, 193 F.3d at 600 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also, e.g., Anthony v. City of N.Y., 339 F.3d 129, 142-43 (2d Cir.2003); Kia P., 235 F.3d at 757-58. Such a claim can only be sustained if the removal of the child would have been prohibited by the Constitution even had the [parents] been given all the procedural protections to which they were entitled. Tenenbaum, 193 F.3d at 600 (emphasis in original). In other words, while a procedural due process claim challenges the procedure by which a removal is effected, a substantive due process claim challenges the fact of [the] removal itself. Bruker v. City of N.Y., 92 F.Supp.2d 257, 266-67 (S.D.N.Y.2000). For such claims brought by children, however, we have concluded that the Constitution provides an alternative, more specific source of protection. [13] When a child is taken into state custody, his or her person is seized for Fourth Amendment purposes. The child may therefore assert a claim under the Fourth Amendment that the seizure of his or her person was unreasonable. See Tenenbaum, 193 F.3d at 602. Such a claim belongs only to the child, not to the parent, although a parent has standing to assert it on the child's behalf. Id. at 601 n. 13. In accordance with our order in Southerland I, 4 Fed.Appx. at 37 n. 2, the district court determined that the Southerland Children's substantive due process claim should be construed instead as a Fourth Amendment unlawful-seizure claim. See Southerland II, 521 F.Supp.2d at 230 n. 24. Finally, depending on the circumstances in which a removal occurs, other Fourth Amendment claims might also be viable. Here, Southerland and the Southerland Children asserted two Fourth Amendment claims for unlawful search: one claim relating to Woo's entry into the Southerland home, and one (now abandoned) claim relating to Woo's remaining in the home even after determining that the Manning Children were not present. Both claims were based on an allegation that Woo made false statements to the Family Court in order to obtain the Order Authorizing Entry, and therefore that there was no probable cause to carry out a search of the Southerland apartment.
The district court determined that summary judgment was warranted on the plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment unlawful-search claims on two separate grounds. First, the district court concluded that Woo was entitled to qualified immunity under the corrected affidavit doctrine. See Southerland II, 521 F.Supp.2d at 230-31. Second, the district court decided that Woo was entitled to summary judgment on the merits because no reasonable juror could find that Woo had knowingly made false or misleading statements in seeking to obtain the Order Authorizing Entry. Id. at 233. We disagree with both conclusions.
We begin with the plaintiffs' argument that the district court erred in its application of the corrected-affidavit doctrine, under which a defendant who makes erroneous statements of fact in a search-warrant affidavit is nonetheless entitled to qualified immunity unless the false statements in the affidavit were necessary to the finding of probable cause. Martinez v. City of Schenectady, 115 F.3d 111, 115 (2d Cir.1997) (internal quotation marks omitted). In order to determine whether false statements were necessary to the finding of probable cause, the court must put aside allegedly false material, supply any omitted information, and then determine whether the contents of the `corrected affidavit' would have supported a finding of probable cause. Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). In applying the corrected-affidavit doctrine, qualified immunity is warranted only if, after correcting for the false or misleading statements, the affidavit accompanying the warrant was sufficient to support a reasonable officer's belief that probable cause existed. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). The district court, which assum[ed] for purposes of the qualified immunity defense that Woo made false and misleading statements in applying for the Order Authorizing Entry, Southerland II, 521 F.Supp.2d at 230, correctly noted that the plaintiffs would still have to demonstrate that those statements were necessary to the finding of probable cause for qualified immunity not to attach to Woo's actions, id. at 230-31 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). The court determined that Woo was entitled to qualified immunity based on its conclusion that a corrected affidavit, containing all of the information available to Woo at the time the affidavit was made, would have supported a finding of probable cause to enter the home. Id. at 231. We disagree. Section 1034(2) of the New York State Family Court Act, which provides the evidentiary standard for a showing of probable cause sufficient for the issuance of an investigative order, governed Woo's application to obtain the Order Authorizing Entry. The district court, in its October 2007 decision, cited the statute as it had been amended in January 2007. See id. at 224 n. 7. But the version that governed at the time of Woo's application was materially different. Under the version of the statute that applied at the time of Woo's actions, the affiant was required to demonstrate probable cause to believe that an abused or neglected child may be found on premises,  N.Y. Fam. Ct. Act § 1034(2) (McKinney's 1997) (emphasis added), presumably meaning the premises identified in the application submitted to the Family Court. The district court should have engaged in its corrected-affidavit analysis with reference to the earlier law. The children that Woo listed on his application for the Order Authorizing Entry  the Manning Children and Ciara  were children who did not reside on premises in the Southerland home. The district court concluded that a properly made application would still list Ciara Manning on the application because Southerland is her father and was the parent legally responsible for her care, even if she had run away. Southerland II, 521 F.Supp.2d at 231. That may be relevant to an inquiry under the statute as amended in 2007, but it is not relevant to the appropriate question under the applicable version of the law: whether there existed probable cause for Woo to believe that Ciara Manning could be found on premises at the Southerland home. In fact, she, like the Manning Children, was not on premises. And Woo had reason to know that she was not  from the information in the initial Intake Report transmitted to Woo; from the guidance counselor's statement to Woo that Southerland did not approve of the place where Ciara was staying; and from Southerland's own statements during his May 30 telephone conversation with Woo that Ciara was a runaway and did not live at his home. [14] The plaintiff children point out that there were other deficiencies in the district court's corrected-affidavit analysis that undermine the court's conclusion that the information known to Woo at the time he applied for the Order Authorizing Entry would have supported a finding of probable cause. For example, Woo's application stated that Ciara tried to kill herself by swallowing non-toxic paint, and that Southerland did not take [Ciara] to a medical doctor and refused to take [Ciara] for psychiatric evaluation. Application for Authorization to Enter Premises dated June 6, 1997, at 1 (June 6 Application), Ex. C to Silverberg Decl. The plaintiff children argue that the application omitted several relevant facts that, according to Southerland's version of events, were known to Woo at that time: that the paint-swallowing incident took place at school, not at home; that Southerland was willing to obtain treatment for his daughter, but had trouble doing so, precisely because she was not living in his home; and that Southerland had attempted to assert control over his daughter by applying for PINS warrants. Southerland Children's Br. at 30-31; see also id. at 28-36 (disputing additional assertions of fact, such as whether the swallowing of paint indeed was a suicide attempt). As the plaintiff children put it: Woo's omission of the fact that the incident took place at school allowed the court to assume that the suicide attempt took place in Southerland's residence. The overall picture painted by Woo is that Southerland's daughter attempted to kill herself, that Southerland did nothing about it, and refused to let others do something about it as well. By omitting the fact that the daughter was not even living at the Southerland apartment, Woo gave the family court the impression that it was necessary to allow Woo to enter the apartment in order to render assistance to a suicidal teenager in the home of a parent who could not be bothered to help her and who prevented the efforts of ACS to provide help to her. Id. at 31-32. The district court included much of this information in its recitation of facts, Southerland II, 521 F.Supp.2d at 222-23 & nn. 4-5, but it did not factor these considerations into its application of the corrected-affidavit doctrine. We have observed that the materiality of a misrepresentation or omission in an application for a search warrant is a mixed question of law and fact. [15] Velardi v. Walsh, 40 F.3d 569, 574 (2d Cir.1994). The legal component depends on whether the information is relevant to the probable cause determination under controlling substantive law. Id. [T]he weight that a neutral magistrate would likely have given such information, however, is a question for the factfinder. Id. In such circumstances, a court may grant summary judgment to a defendant based on qualified immunity only where the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, discloses no genuine dispute that a magistrate would have issued the warrant on the basis of the corrected affidavits. Walczyk v. Rio, 496 F.3d 139, 158 (2d Cir.2007) (emphasis, citation, and internal quotation marks omitted). We cannot conclude as a matter of law  although a trier of fact might so conclude after an evidentiary hearing  that the Family Court, in deciding whether there was probable cause to believe that an abused or neglected child may [have] be[en] found [in the Southerland home], N.Y. Fam. Ct. Act § 1034(2), would have issued the order had a corrected affidavit been presented to it.
The district court also concluded that even if the corrected-affidavit doctrine did not apply, summary judgment was appropriate because, on the merits, no reasonable juror could infer that Woo knowingly and intentionally made false and misleading statements to the family court in order to receive an order authorizing his entry into the Southerland home. Southerland II, 521 F.Supp.2d at 233. Based on that premise, the district court concluded that the [O]rder [Authorizing Entry] was issued with probable cause and Woo's entry into and search of Southerland's home did not violate plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment rights. Id. We disagree. If the district court were correct that Woo did not knowingly make false and misleading statements, that would entitle Woo to qualified immunity, but would not necessarily render his underlying conduct lawful. When a person alleges a Fourth Amendment violation arising from a search executed by a state official, the issuance of a search warrant... creates a presumption that it was objectively reasonable for the [defendant] to believe that the search was supported by probable cause so as to render the defendant qualifiedly immune from liability. Martinez, 115 F.3d at 115. To defeat the presumption of reasonableness, a plaintiff must make a substantial preliminary showing that the affiant knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless disregard for the truth, made a false statement in his affidavit and that the allegedly false statement was necessary to the finding of probable cause for which the warrant was issued. Golino v. City of New Haven, 950 F.2d 864, 870 (2d Cir.1991) (internal quotation marks omitted), cert. denied, 505 U.S. 1221, 112 S.Ct. 3032, 120 L.Ed.2d 902 (1992). We need not consider further whether the district court erred by confusing the qualified immunity and merits analyses, however, because we also do not agree with the district court's premise that no reasonable juror could find that Woo knowingly or recklessly made false statements. We think that several disputed facts, taken together and viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, would permit  though not require  a reasonable factfinder to find otherwise. First, substantial evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, suggests that Woo had reason to know that Ciara was not residing at the Southerland home when he applied for the Order Authorizing Entry. For example, the May 29 Intake Report informed ACS that Ciara may be staying out of the home in an i[m]proper enviro[n]ment. Intake Report at 3. And Southerland told Woo on May 30 that Ciara was a runaway and that he had taken out PINS warrants against her. Southerland II, 521 F.Supp.2d at 223. A reasonable juror could find that Woo's application to the Family Court on June 6 was knowingly or recklessly misleading in stating: I have reasonable cause to believe that the above named children [including Ciara] may be found at the above premises [the Southerland home]. June 6 Application at 1. Second, evidence in the record, again viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, would permit a reasonable juror to conclude that Woo had knowingly or recklessly misrepresented the nature of the paint-swallowing incident in his application. About one week before June 6, Woo learned from a school counselor that Ciara had swallowed non-toxic paint at school and had been acting out and expressing thoughts of suicide. Woo Decl. ¶ 6. Although the counselor informed Woo that Southerland had failed to seek medical treatment for Ciara, see id., Southerland later explained to Woo that the reason he had not taken Ciara for treatment was that she did not reside with Southerland and did not listen to him, id. ¶ 8. Yet Woo's application represented to the Family Court that Ciara tried to kill herself by swallowing non-toxic paint and that Southerland did not take [her] to a medical doctor and refused to take [her] for psychiatric evaluation. June 6 Application at 1. A reasonable trier of fact might find the foregoing statements to be materially misleading insofar as they characterize Ciara's paint-swallowing as a suicide attempt; fail to note that the incident occurred at school rather than in Southerland's home; and omit the fact that Ciara may have been living outside the home and free from Southerland's control. Finally, the district court overlooked the parties' dispute concerning Woo's knowledge about which children resided in the Southerland apartment. The district court stated that Woo had reason to believe that the Manning children would be found in the Southerland apartment because of a separate investigation of the Manning children and his personal observation that there were other children in the Southerland home who had not yet been positively identified. Southerland II, 521 F.Supp.2d at 233. But, as the district court opinion elsewhere observes, on June 4, 1997  two days before he applied for the Order Authorizing Entry  Woo met the Southerland Children emerging from the Southerland apartment and wrote down their names. See id. at 223-24 & n. 6. We think that there is a triable issue of fact as to whether Woo in fact believed, as he wrote in his application to the Family Court, that it was the Manning Children and not the Southerland Children who were in the Southerland home, or whether he recklessly confused or knowingly conflated the two. Although these alleged misrepresentations may turn out to be no more than accidental misstatements made in haste, the plaintiffs have nonetheless made a substantial preliminary showing that Woo knowingly or recklessly made false statements in his application for the Order Authorizing Entry. Golino, 950 F.2d at 870 (internal quotation marks omitted). This showing rebuts the presumption of reasonableness that would otherwise apply to shield Woo with qualified immunity at the summary judgment stage. In sum, because we conclude that genuine issues of material fact exist, both as to whether Woo knowingly or recklessly made false statements in his affidavit to the Family Court and as to whether such false statements were necessary to the court's finding of probable cause, we vacate the district court's grant of summary judgment on the plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment unlawful-search claims. Once again, we note that a trier of fact might, after review of the evidence, conclude that the errors in the June 6 Application were either accidental or immaterial. We vacate the grant of summary judgment because we cannot reach that conclusion ourselves on the current record as a matter of law.
Southerland and the Southerland Children each assert a procedural due process claim against Woo. The district court held that Woo was entitled to qualified immunity on these claims. We disagree.
`As a general rule ... before parents may be deprived of the care, custody, or management of their children without their consent, due process  ordinarily a court proceeding resulting in an order permitting removal  must be accorded to them.' Nicholson v. Scoppetta, 344 F.3d 154, 171 (2d Cir.2003) (quoting Tenenbaum, 193 F.3d at 593). However, `in emergency circumstances, a child may be taken into custody by a responsible State official without court authorization or parental consent.' Id. (quoting Tenenbaum, 193 F.3d at 594). `If the danger to the child is not so imminent that there is reasonably sufficient time to seek prior judicial authorization, ex parte or otherwise, for the child's removal, then the circumstances are not emergent.' Id. (quoting Tenenbaum, 193 F.3d at 594). To prevail, [t]he government must offer `objectively reasonable' evidence that harm is imminent. Id. Although we have not exhaustively set forth the types of factual circumstances that constitute imminent danger justifying emergency removal as a matter of federal constitutional law, we have concluded that these circumstances include the peril of sexual abuse, id., the risk that children will be `left bereft of care and supervision,' id. (quoting Hurlman v. Rice, 927 F.2d 74, 80 (2d Cir. 1991)), and immediate threat[s] to the safety of the child, Hurlman, 927 F.2d at 80 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also N.Y. Fam. Ct. Act § 1024(a) (defining emergency circumstances, for the purposes of state law, as circumstance[s] wherein a child's remaining in the parent's care and custody presents an imminent danger to the child's life or health).
The district court correctly concluded that summary judgment was not appropriate on the underlying merits of the plaintiffs' procedural due process claims because Woo did not demonstrate, as a matter of law, that he did not have time to obtain a court order authorizing the removal of the Southerland Children before taking that act. See Southerland II, 521 F.Supp.2d at 235 n. 31 (citing Nicholson, 344 F.3d at 171). The court nonetheless granted summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds, concluding that the law concerning procedural due process rights in the context of child removals was not clearly defined at the time of the events in question. Id. at 232. But in Hurlman, we recognized that officials may remove a child from the custody of the parent without consent or a prior court order only in emergency circumstances. Emergency circumstances mean circumstances in which the child is immediately threatened with harm, for example, where there exists an immediate threat to the safety of the child, or where the child is left bereft of care and supervision, or where there is evidence of serious ongoing abuse and the officials have reason to fear imminent recurrence. Hurlman, 927 F.2d at 80 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted); see also Robison v. Via, 821 F.2d 913, 921-22 (2d Cir.1987) (describing the `emergency' circumstances exception and collecting cases). [16] It thus was clearly established at the time of the Southerland Children's removal that state officials could not remove a child from the custody of a parent without either consent or a prior court order unless `emergency' circumstances existed. Hurlman, 927 F.2d at 80; see also Cecere v. City of N.Y., 967 F.2d 826, 829-30 (2d Cir.1992) (setting forth clearly established procedural due process principles); see also Velez v. Reynolds, 325 F.Supp.2d 293, 314-15 (S.D.N.Y.2004) (explaining the principles). In concluding that the law of procedural due process was not clearly established in the child-removal context in 1997, the district court in the case at bar relied primarily on our decision in Tenenbaum. There we held as a matter of first impression that where there is reasonable time consistent with the safety of the child to obtain a judicial order, the `emergency' removal of a child is unwarranted. Tenenbaum, 193 F.3d at 596. Because this principle was not clearly established in 1990  the year the underlying conduct at issue in Tenenbaum took place  we affirmed the district court's decision in that case that the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity. We also made clear, however, that even in 1990, it was established as a general matter ... that `except where emergency circumstances exist' a parent can `not be deprived' of the custody of his or her child `without due process, generally in the form of a predeprivation hearing.' Id. at 596 (quoting Hurlman, 927 F.2d at 79). In the present case, the plaintiffs assert not solely that defendants had sufficient time to obtain a court order, but that the circumstances in which Woo found the children did not warrant their removal at all, whether evaluated by pre- or post- Tenenbaum standards. Southerland Children's Br. at 39. [17] We understand the plaintiffs' contention to be that emergency circumstances warranting removal simply did not exist. The district court did not decide as a matter of law that emergency circumstances existed in the Southerland home. To the contrary, the district court concluded that [v]iewing the facts in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, a reasonable juror could determine that the circumstances Woo encountered did not demonstrate an imminent danger to the children's life or limb. Southerland II, 521 F.Supp.2d at 234 n. 29. The court further decided that a reasonable juror could find that there was sufficient time to acquire a court order prior to the removal. Id. at 235 n. 31. In light of those determinations, with which we agree, and our assessment that the relevant law was clearly established in 1997, we cannot conclude as a matter of law that it was objectively reasonable for [Woo] to believe [that his] acts did not violate those [clearly established] rights. Holcomb, 337 F.3d at 220. Qualified immunity therefore is not available to Woo on the plaintiffs' procedural due process claims at the summary judgment stage. Because summary judgment also cannot be granted to the defendants on the underlying merits of these claims, [18] we vacate the grant of summary judgment to Woo as to the procedural due process claims.
Southerland asserts a substantive due process claim against Woo under the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court held not only that qualified immunity attached to Woo's actions, but also that summary judgment would be warranted on the merits even in the absence of qualified immunity. We disagree with both conclusions.
Substantive due process guards a person's rights against the government's `exercise of power without any reasonable justification in the service of a legitimate governmental objective.' Tenenbaum, 193 F.3d at 600 (quoting County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 846, 118 S.Ct. 1708, 140 L.Ed.2d 1043 (1998)). To establish a violation of substantive due process rights, a plaintiff must demonstrate that the state action was `so egregious, so outrageous, that it may fairly be said to shock the contemporary conscience.' Okin v. Vill. of Cornwall-on-Hudson Police Dep't, 577 F.3d 415, 431 (2d Cir.2009) (quoting Lewis, 523 U.S. at 847 n. 8, 118 S.Ct. 1708). The interference with the plaintiff's protected right must be `so shocking, arbitrary, and egregious that the Due Process Clause would not countenance it even were it accompanied by full procedural protection.' Anthony, 339 F.3d at 143 (quoting Tenenbaum, 193 F.3d at 600); see also Lewis, 523 U.S. at 840, 118 S.Ct. 1708 (doctrine of substantive due process bar[s] certain government actions regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement them (internal quotation marks omitted)). Thus, in the child-removal context, we ask whether the removal ... would have been prohibited by the Constitution even had the [plaintiffs] been given all the procedural protections to which they were entitled. Tenenbaum, 193 F.3d at 600 (emphasis omitted). We have long recognized that parents have a constitutionally protected liberty interest in the care, custody and management of their children, id. at 593, and that the deprivation of this interest is actionable under a theory of substantive due process, see id. at 600 (recognizing a substantive right under the Due Process Clause `to remain together without the coercive interference of the awesome power of the state' (quoting Duchesne, 566 F.2d at 825)). We have also observed, however, that [a]lthough parents enjoy a constitutionally protected interest in their family integrity, this interest is counterbalanced by the compelling governmental interest in the protection of minor children, particularly in circumstances where the protection is considered necessary as against the parents themselves. Wilkinson ex rel. Wilkinson v. Russell, 182 F.3d 89, 104 (2d Cir.1999) (internal quotation marks omitted), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 1155, 120 S.Ct. 1160, 145 L.Ed.2d 1072 (2000). We have explained that, in part because the law contemplates a careful balancing of interests, a parent's substantive constitutional rights are not infringed if a caseworker, in effecting a removal of a child from the parent's home, has a reasonable basis for thinking that a child is abused or neglected. See id. This Circuit has adopted a standard governing case workers which reflects the recognized need for unusual deference in the abuse investigation context. An investigation passes constitutional muster provided simply that case workers have a `reasonable basis' for their findings of abuse. Id.; see also id. at 108 (concluding that the reasonable basis test requires that caseworkers' decisions to substantiate an allegation of child abuse be consistent with some significant portion of the evidence before them). We have applied this reasonable basis standard from time to time in recent years. See, e.g., Nicholson, 344 F.3d at 174; Phifer v. City of N.Y., 289 F.3d 49, 60 (2d Cir.2002); Kia P., 235 F.3d at 758-59. We have also recognized that substantive due process claims in the child-removal context have a temporal dimension. Because state interference with a plaintiff's liberty interest must be severe before it rises to the level of a substantive constitutional violation, see, e.g., Anthony, 339 F.3d at 143, brief removals [of a child from a parent's home] generally do not rise to the level of a substantive due process violation, at least where the purpose of the removal is to keep the child safe during investigation and court confirmation of the basis for removal, Nicholson, 344 F.3d at 172 (citing Tenenbaum, 193 F.3d at 600-01 & n. 12); see also Cecere, 967 F.2d at 830 (ruling that plaintiff's due process claim failed because a brief four-day removal, executed in the face of a reasonably perceived emergency, did not violate due process); Joyner ex rel. Lowry v. Dumpson, 712 F.2d 770, 779 (2d Cir.1983) (no substantive violation where temporary transfer of custody to foster-care system did not result in parents' wholesale relinquishment of their right to rear their children).
The district court, in deciding that qualified immunity protection prevailed, concluded that it was objectively reasonable for Woo to think that Southerland's substantive due process rights were not being violated because [b]rief removals of children from their parents generally do not rise to the level of a substantive due process violation, Southerland II, 521 F.Supp.2d at 232 (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted), and because the Southerland Children were removed in the context of a child protective investigation [in which] removal would be subject to court confirmation, id.; see also id. at 234 (suggesting that a family court judge confirmed the removal at a timely post-deprivation hearing). We agree in principle. The removal of a child from his or her parent does not violate the parent's substantive due process rights if a post-removal judicial proceeding is promptly held to confirm that there exists a reasonable basis for the removal. The period of time in which the child and parent are separated at the sole instruction of the defendant is, in such a case, not severe enough to constitute a substantive due process violation by the defendant. See Nicholson, 344 F.3d at 172; Tenenbaum, 193 F.3d at 600-01. If it were clear in the record that the removal of the Southerland Children was confirmed by a prompt and adequate judicial confirmation proceeding, we would agree with the district court that summary judgment would be appropriate on that basis. But the record is not sufficiently clear for us to determine whether such a post-removal judicial proceeding occurred, and if so, the nature of it. The district court stated that the Southerland Children were removed and held in ACS custody pending a timely post-deprivation hearing where a family court judge confirmed the removal. Southerland II, 521 F.Supp.2d at 234. And the court had previously observed that the Southerland Children remained in custody without a court order until the morning of June 12, 1997  about forty-eight hours  at which time Woo obtained a court order confirming the removal. Southerland v. City of N.Y., No. 99-cv-3329, 2006 WL 2224432, at , 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 53582, at  (E.D.N.Y. Aug. 2, 2006). Although the parties do not appear to dispute that a post-removal judicial confirmation proceeding was held, nor do they dispute that this proceeding took place within several days after removal, they provide no further detail upon which we can assess the nature of the proceeding in terms of its timeliness and adequacy. [19] We are also unable to determine from the present record on what factual basis the Family Court decided that the continued removal of the Southerland Children was warranted. We do not know, for example, whether its decision to confirm the removal was based solely on written submissions by Woo to the same effect and containing the same errors as Woo's application for the Order Authorizing Entry. Apparently relying on the understanding that the Family Court had promptly confirmed the Southerland Children's removal, the district court concluded that no reasonable trier of fact could find that the removal of the Children was so `shocking, arbitrary, and egregious' that Southerland's substantive due process rights were violated. Southerland II, 521 F.Supp.2d at 235 (citation omitted). For much the same reason that we conclude that material questions of fact preclude summary judgment on the merits of the plaintiffs' procedural due process claims, however, we conclude that summary judgment was inappropriate on the merits of Southerland's substantive due process claim. A plaintiff's substantive due process claim fails if there is an objectively reasonable basis for believing that parental custody constitutes a threat to the child's health or safety. Gottlieb v. County of Orange, 84 F.3d 511, 518 (2d Cir.1996). Although this reasonable basis standard appears to impose a lesser burden on a defendant than the emergency circumstances standard applicable to procedural due process claims, summary judgment is nevertheless not appropriate unless there exists no genuine issue of material fact and, based on the undisputed facts, the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. D'Amico, 132 F.3d at 149. The facts concerning the nature of Southerland's behavior during Woo's investigation and the conditions in the Southerland apartment at the time that Woo effected the removal remain hotly contested by the parties. For example, while Woo contends that the apartment lacked enough food, lighting, and bedding; that the Children were malodorous; and that various safety hazards were present, Southerland has tendered admissible evidence (albeit largely in the form of his own testimony) that each of those factual assertions is false. If the trier of fact were to credit Southerland's account, we cannot say that it would be unreasonable for it to then conclude that a reasonable caseworker in Woo's position lacked an objectively reasonable basis for removing the Children, Gottlieb, 84 F.3d at 518, and thus that Woo's actions were shocking, arbitrary, and egregious, Anthony, 339 F.3d at 143 (internal quotation marks omitted). Moreover, in the absence of record evidence as to the substance of the post-removal judicial confirmation proceeding, we cannot conclude that the fact that the Family Court confirmed the removal of the Southerland Children suffices to show that Woo's conduct had an objectively reasonable basis. Cf. Southerland II, 521 F.Supp.2d at 234-35. Finally, we consider whether Woo is nonetheless entitled to summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. As noted, qualified immunity is available to defendants insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727; see also Cornejo v. Bell, 592 F.3d 121, 128 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ____, 131 S.Ct. 158, 178 L.Ed.2d 243 (2010). When a defendant official invokes qualified immunity as a basis for summary judgment, a court must consider not only whether evidence in the record suggests a violation of a statutory or constitutional right, but also whether that right was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation. Tracy v. Freshwater, 623 F.3d 90, 96 (2d Cir.2010). Thus, if it could be shown that, at the time of the events in question, Woo lacked a legal basis upon which he could conclude that his actions would violate Southerland's substantive due process rights, Woo would be entitled to qualified immunity. The relevant, dispositive inquiry in determining whether a right is clearly established is whether it would be clear to a reasonable officer [in the position of the defendant] that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 202, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001), overruled on other grounds by Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 129 S.Ct. 808, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009). In answering that question, we consider: (1) whether the right was defined with reasonable specificity; (2) whether Supreme Court or court of appeals case law supports the existence of the right in question, and (3) whether under preexisting law a reasonable defendant would have understood that his or her acts were unlawful. Scott v. Fischer, 616 F.3d 100, 105 (2d Cir.2010). The task of framing the right at issue with some precision is critical in determining whether that particular right was clearly established at the time of the defendants' alleged violation. Redd v. Wright, 597 F.3d 532, 536 (2d Cir.2010); see also Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 609, 119 S.Ct. 1692, 143 L.Ed.2d 818 (1999). Although the matter of whether a right at issue is clearly established is a question of law, Higazy v. Templeton, 505 F.3d 161, 170 (2d Cir.2007), that question is tied to the specific facts and context of the case, Gilles v. Repicky, 511 F.3d 239, 244 (2d Cir.2007). In 1997, when Woo effected the removal, it was well established as a general matter that parents possess a substantive right under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to exercise care, custody, and control over their children. See, e.g., Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 753, 102 S.Ct. 1388, 71 L.Ed.2d 599 (1982); Gottlieb, 84 F.3d at 518; Joyner ex rel. Lowry, 712 F.2d at 777. It was also the law, however, that where parental custody constitutes a threat to the child's health or safety, government officials may remove a child from his or her parents' custody at least pending investigation. Gottlieb, 84 F.3d at 518; see also Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 649-53, 92 S.Ct. 1208, 31 L.Ed.2d 551 (1972); Croft v. Westmoreland County Children & Youth Servs., 103 F.3d 1123, 1125 (3d Cir.1997). We therefore determined prior to 1997 that where the state has an objectively reasonable basis for removing a child from his or her parent, the parent's substantive constitutional rights are not infringed. Gottlieb, 84 F.3d at 518; see generally id. at 520; van Emrik v. Chemung County Dep't of Soc. Servs., 911 F.2d 863, 866 (2d Cir.1990). We also repeatedly assured potential defendants that qualified immunity would be available to protect state officials in choosing between [difficult] alternatives, provided that there is an objectively reasonable basis for their decision, whichever way they make it. van Emrik, 911 F.2d at 866; see also Defore v. Premore, 86 F.3d 48, 50 (2d Cir.1996) (per curiam) (qualified immunity exists to insure that publicly employed caseworkers have adequate latitude to exercise their professional judgment in matters of child welfare). In 1999, two years after the events in question here, we summarized the state of the law in Wilkinson: Although parents enjoy a constitutionally protected interest in their family integrity, this interest is counterbalanced by the `compelling governmental interest in the protection of minor children, particularly in circumstances where the protection is considered necessary as against the parents themselves.' Wilkinson, 182 F.3d at 104 (quoting Manzano v. S.D. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 60 F.3d 505, 510 (8th Cir.1995) (internal quotation marks omitted)). We observed that [t]he difficulty of balancing the weighty interests apparent in the [child] abuse context... has prompted courts to impose few concrete restrictions on case workers, in exercising their discretion, short of [certain] obvious extremes. Id. We described those extremes as including circumstances where a caseworker ignor[es] overwhelming exculpatory information or manufactur[es] false evidence. Id. We concluded in dicta that our decisions to that date had left the defendants at bar with little or no indication that their alleged misconduct, as near as it was to the constitutional borderline, would have even implicated serious constitutional concerns. Id. at 107; see also Patel v. Searles, 305 F.3d 130, 139 (2d Cir.2002), cert. denied, 538 U.S. 907, 123 S.Ct. 1486, 155 L.Ed.2d 227 (2003). Our discussion in Wilkinson would seem to suggest that perhaps there was a lack of clearly established law available to guide Woo's conduct. We nonetheless cannot conclude as a matter of law that, in 1997, Woo lacked sufficient legal guidance by which to discern the lawfulness of his actions. Assuming, as we must at the summary judgment stage, that the factual circumstances are as Southerland, not Woo, describes them, and resolving all credibility questions and drawing all reasonable inferences in Southerland's favor, we are not able to say that Woo would then have lacked a legal basis for understanding that removing the children from their home would be unlawful. Indeed, the district court here was also of the view that Southerland's substantive due process rights were clearly established at the time of the removal of the children. Southerland II, 521 F.Supp.2d at 232. We therefore cannot conclude on this record that the principles of law applicable to the facts as we must view them on appeal from a grant of summary judgment were not clearly established in 1997. Woo is thus not entitled at this stage to qualified immunity on Southerland's substantive due process claim, although, again, once the relevant disputes of material fact are resolved, the district court might eventually conclude that Woo is entitled to such immunity.
Finally, the Southerland Children assert a claim for violation of their own substantive due process rights, which the district court recharacterized as a claim of unlawful seizure under the Fourth Amendment. See Southerland II, 521 F.Supp.2d at 227 n. 22, 230 n. 24. The district court concluded that Woo was entitled to qualified immunity because prior to the Court of Appeals' decision in Tenenbaum [in 1999], there was no clear application of Fourth Amendment standards in the child removal context. Id. at 231. Although we agree with the district court's observation that this Circuit had not yet applied Fourth Amendment unlawful-seizure principles in the child-removal context by 1997, we think that the district court erred by conducting its inquiry solely by reference to the Fourth Amendment. Our decision in Tenenbaum effected a change in the legal framework applicable to a child's claim for substantive constitutional violations arising out of the child's removal from his or her parent's home. There, the plaintiffs contended that [their daughter's] temporary removal for the purpose of subjecting her to a medical examination violated their and [the daughter's] substantive due-process rights. Tenenbaum, 193 F.3d at 599. Relying on Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266, 273, 114 S.Ct. 807, 127 L.Ed.2d 114 (1994) (plurality opinion of Rehnquist, C.J . ), we observed that where a particular Amendment provides an explicit textual source of constitutional protection against a particular sort of government behavior, that Amendment, not the more generalized notion of substantive due process, must be the guide for analyzing these claims. Tenenbaum, 193 F.3d at 599 (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted). We said that `[s]ubstantive due process analysis is ... inappropriate ... if [the] claim is covered by the Fourth Amendment.' Id. at 600 (quoting Lewis, 523 U.S. at 843, 118 S.Ct. 1708) (second brackets in original; other internal quotation marks omitted). We then concluded that the daughter's removal and her examination constituted a seizure and search, respectively, under the Fourth Amendment, id., and that her claim therefore `must be analyzed under the standard appropriate to [the Fourth Amendment], not under the rubric of substantive due process.' [20] Id. (quoting United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259, 272 n. 7, 117 S.Ct. 1219, 137 L.Ed.2d 432 (1997)). The fact that Tenenbaum changed the legal rubric applicable to the Southerland Children's constitutional claims, however, is not determinative of whether their rights were clearly established in 1997. It would be inappropriate, we think, to afford Woo qualified immunity on the Southerland Children's claims solely because, two years after the events in question, we shifted the constitutional framework for evaluating those claims from the Fourteenth to the Fourth Amendment. We reached a similar conclusion in Russo v. City of Bridgeport, 479 F.3d 196 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 552 U.S. 818, 128 S.Ct. 109, 169 L.Ed.2d 24 (2007). There we made clear that the constitutional right to be free from prolonged detention caused by law enforcement officials' mishandling or suppression of exculpatory evidence, id. at 211, was a species of the right to be free from unlawful seizure under the Fourth Amendment, not a substantive due process right under the Fourteenth Amendment, see id. at 208-09. In then proceeding to undertake a qualified immunity inquiry, we cautioned that our clarification [of the law was] of no consequence to the question of whether the right was clearly established [at the time of the relevant events], because the proper inquiry is whether the right itself  rather than its source  is clearly established. Id. at 212 (collecting cases; emphasis in original). Here, as in Russo, in inquiring whether there was clearly established law to govern the Southerland Children's claims in 1997, we look not only to authorities interpreting the Fourth Amendment, but to all decisions concerning the same substantive right. At the time of the events in question in this case, a child's claim for violation of his or her right to preservation of family integrity, Duchesne, 566 F.2d at 825, would likely have been understood to arise under the substantive due process guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment. This right had been recognized in our case law by 1997, see Joyner ex rel. Lowry, 712 F.2d at 777-78; Rivera v. Marcus, 696 F.2d 1016, 1026 (2d Cir.1982); Leonhard v. United States, 633 F.2d 599, 618 (2d Cir. 1980) (collecting cases); Duchesne, 566 F.2d at 825, although it had been less frequently litigated than the corresponding substantive parental right. As with the corresponding parental right, however, the law in 1997 also recognized the countervailing principle that the state may remove children from the custody of their parents without violating the children's constitutional rights where there is a reasonable basis for concluding that the children are abused or neglected. See, e.g., Rivera, 696 F.2d at 1017. For much the same reason that we determined that Woo is not entitled to qualified immunity as a matter of law on the current record as to Southerland's substantive due process claim, resolving all disputed facts in the plaintiffs' favor for these purposes, we conclude that a reasonable caseworker in Woo's position would not have lacked a sufficient legal basis for knowing that his conduct under those circumstances would infringe upon the substantive constitutional rights of the Southerland Children. As with the other claims addressed in these appeals, though, the district court may yet conclude on remand and after further development of the facts that Woo is entitled to qualified immunity in this context. Finally, we note that the district court concluded that, in the absence of qualified immunity protection, Woo would not be entitled to summary judgment on the merits of the Southerland Children's Fourth Amendment unlawful-seizure claim. See Southerland II, 521 F.Supp.2d at 234 n. 29. We have no reason to disturb that ruling on appeal.