Opinion ID: 2816329
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Kirkpatrick’s Fourteenth Amendment Claim

Text: We first consider whether the district court correctly granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment on Kirkpatrick’s claim that the County and its agents violated his Fourteenth Amendment right not to be separated from B.W. without due process under non-exigent circumstances. See Mabe, 237 F.3d at 1106; Wallis, 202 F.3d at 1136. We affirm the district court’s summary judgment in favor of all of the defendants on Kirkpatrick’s claim because the facts alleged, construed in the light most favorable to Kirkpatrick, do not 10 KIRKPATRICK V. COUNTY OF WASHOE show that the defendants violated his constitutional rights. See Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201 (2001) (“If no constitutional right would have been violated were the allegations established, there is no necessity for further inquiries.”). Kirkpatrick did not have a constitutionally recognized liberty interest in his relationship with B.W. when she was taken into custody on July 17, 2008, because he was not yet a “parent” to B.W. At the time, no one was confident about whether Kirkpatrick was B.W.’s biological father. Kirkpatrick acknowledged that he “did not know” whether he was the father and that there were “possibly other candidates.” Rachel Whitworth had informed Kirkpatrick that B.W. might be his child, but that there was “a possibility it could be someone else’s as well.” The test that eventually established Kirkpatrick’s paternity was not administered until four days after B.W. was taken into custody. We have recognized that the constitutional interest in a biological parent’s relationship with his child persists even when that relationship is, as a practical matter, quite attenuated. See Burke v. Cnty. of Alameda, 586 F.3d 725, 733 (9th Cir. 2009) (holding that a biological father had a liberty interest in his relationship with his daughter even though the child’s mother had sole physical custody of the child); Brittain v. Hansen, 451 F.3d 982, 992 (9th Cir. 2006) (holding that “non-custodial parents with court-ordered visitation rights have a liberty interest in the companionship, care, custody, and management of their children”). But Kirkpatrick did not take any steps to confirm that he was B.W.’s biological father before the WCDSS took custody of B.W., such as requesting a paternity test before she was born or during her two days in the hospital, or attempting to KIRKPATRICK V. COUNTY OF WASHOE 11 execute a voluntary acknowledgment of paternity declaration. See Nev. Rev. Stat. § 126.053 (providing that a voluntary acknowledgment of paternity declaration is “deemed to have the same effect as a judgment or order of a court determining the existence of the relationship of parent and child if the declaration is signed . . . by the mother and father of the child”). Of course Kirkpatrick was not obligated to attempt to confirm his paternity, but he cannot claim the constitutional entitlements that have been allocated to biological parents when he did not seek to establish that he was B.W.’s father. On these facts, we conclude that Kirkpatrick lacked a cognizable liberty interest in his relationship with B.W. Because Kirkpatrick cannot prove a violation of his constitutional rights, the district court properly granted summary judgment in favor of all of the defendants on the claim asserted by Kirkpatrick on his own behalf.