Opinion ID: 766396
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Definition of Emergency

Text: 107 We have previously held that an emergency is an exigent situation in which a child welfare worker may take custody of a child without parental consent and without a court order. Thus the majority recites: in 'emergency circumstances,' a child may be taken into custody by a responsible State official without court authorization or parental consent. Majority Opinion at 22-23 (quoting Hurlman v. Rice, 927 F.2d 74, 80 (2d Cir. 1991)). This standard has been applied again and again. See Gottlieb v. County of Orange, 84 F.3d 511, 520 (2d Cir. 1996) (It is established... that government officials may remove a child from his or her parents' custody before a hearing is held where there is an objectively reasonable basis for believing that a threat to the child's health or safety is imminent.); Cecere v. City of New York, 967 F.2d 826, 829 (2d Cir. 1992); Robison v. Via, 821 F.2d 913, 922 (2d Cir. 1987) ([I]t is sufficient if the officials have been presented with evidence of serious ongoing abuse and therefore have reason to fear imminent recurrence.); Duchesne v. Sugarman, 566 F.2d 817, 825-26 (2d Cir. 1977). 108 The majority opinion announces a new and incompatible principle: that there is no such emergency, notwithstanding the exigency, if there is or may be time to obtain a court order. None of our cases has held that the availability of the emergency-removal exception depends on whether there is time to obtain judicial pre-authorization. Each of our prior cases requires only that an emergency exist, a fact that is determined by reference to the child's peril, not the case worker's schedule or the court's calendar. This is a sensible formulation, and one that keeps the child welfare worker focused on what matters first in these cases, the child's precarious welfare. When a child's safety is threatened, that is justification enough for action first and hearing afterward. Lossman v. Pekarske, 707 F.2d 288, 291 (7th Cir. 1983), quoted in Robison, 821 F.2d at 921. 109 The error of the majority opinion is to recast a child-welfare emergency in terms of a procedural emergency, i.e., whether the danger to the child is so pressing that no court order is feasible. Thus the majority opinion requires a child welfare worker, at peril of personal liability, to make the additional determination as to whether there is time enough to secure court authorization. An already-difficult calculus is thus complicated by a new and confusing set of standards and risks. Cf. Wilkinson v. Russell, 182 F.3d 89, 105 (2d Cir. 1999) ([C]ourts must be especially sensitive to the pressurized circumstances routinely confronting case workers, circumstances in which decisions between difficult alternatives often need to be made on the basis of limited or conflicting information. (internal quotation marks omitted)). 110 The circumstances of this case objectively justified invocation of the emergency exception. At the time the child welfare workers decided to effect the removal of Sarah Tenenbaum for a hospital exam, they knew: that the little girl was mute some or all of the time (a state consistent with some appalling trauma); that she had nevertheless expressed to her teacher that she was being hurt in her sexual parts by her father; that her mother worked nurse's hours; and that her father (whose hours as a Board of Education plumber were unknown) might or might not be home when she left kindergarten each day. I would therefore affirm summary judgment for the defendants on the removal claim. 111