Opinion ID: 744176
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: michelle and joel whisman's claims

Text: 20 Michelle has alleged that defendants' actions violated her constitutional right to not be deprived of the custody of her son without due process of law. Parents have a recognized liberty interest in the care, custody, and management of their children. Myers v. Morris, 810 F.2d 1437, 1462 (8th Cir.1987). Both parents and children have a liberty interest in the care and companionship of each other. See Lehr v. Robertson, 463 U.S. 248, 258, 103 S.Ct. 2985, 2991, 77 L.Ed.2d 614 (1983). ([T]he relationship of love and duty in a recognized family unit is an interest in liberty entitled to constitutional protection.). Myers v. Morris, 810 F.2d at 1462. That liberty interest is limited by the compelling governmental interest in protection of minor children, particularly in circumstances where the protection is considered necessary as against the parents themselves. Id. 21 We take a broad view of what constitutes clearly established under the qualified immunity analysis. Munz v. Michael, 28 F.3d 795, 799 (8th Cir.1994). The balance favors the plaintiffs when the test is based solely on the allegations in the complaint. Hafley v. Lohman, 90 F.3d at 267 (balancing an employee's First Amendment rights against a public employer's interests). We have held that when a state official pursuing a child abuse investigation takes an action which would otherwise unconstitutionally disrupt familial integrity, he or she is entitled to qualified immunity, if such action is properly founded upon a reasonable suspicion of child abuse. Thomason v. SCAN Volunteer Services, 85 F.3d at 1371. 22 This does not appear to be a case of balancing the parent's liberty interest against the state's interest in protecting the child. Before Joel was removed to defendants' custody, defendants were advised that Lynn, Joel's grandmother, had agreed to pick up Joel by noon. The babysitter had contacted Lynn and thus, arguably, was entirely comfortable with Lynn's prompt response and plan to pick up Joel. Defendants blocked this reasonable arrangement, which arrangement might have been authorized or directed by Michelle. Defendants apparently had no information to the contrary. Defendants knew there was no indication of any physical neglect of Joel, no indication of any immediate threat to his welfare and no indication of any criminal activity by Michelle or anyone else. All they apparently had was third hand hearsay as to Michelle being intoxicated while the child was being cared for by a babysitter. There was not, under the allegations of the complaint, any reasonable suspicion of child abuse such as was present in Thomason v. SCAN Volunteer Services, Inc., supra. As we have already observed, rights of parents and children, in such a relationship, are not absolute. The intangible fibers that connect parent and child have infinite variety.... It is self-evident that they are sufficiently vital to merit constitutional protection in appropriate cases. Lehr v. Robertson, 463 U.S. at 256, 103 S.Ct. at 2990 (emphasis added). We are unwilling to conclude that the case before us is not such an appropriate case. The allegations here as to Michelle and Joel are totally unlike the allegations and the factual scenario in Ebmeier v. Stump, supra, where we agreed with the district court that the actions of the defendants were objectively reasonable and where there was no violation of a constitutionally protected liberty interest. As in Thomason, our holding is limited to the claimed facts of this case. Despite repeated attempts to retrieve Joel from defendants' custody, defendants refused to return Joel. No investigation was done to determine whether it was necessary or even advisable to take Joel into custody in the first place and no investigation was ever done as to the possibility of returning Joel to his mother, grandmother or anyone else designated by Michelle. We accept as true, for the purposes of a motion to dismiss, that the state had no compelling governmental interest in taking custody of Joel and there was no reasonable suspicion of child abuse or neglect. 23 Defendants contend they were acting under a state court order. Yet no state court order was filed until 13 days after defendants had taken Joel into custody. Orders of this type are not effective until filed. See Nance v. Nance, 880 S.W.2d 341, 345 (Mo.App.1994). Defendants attempted to delay the hearing and Joel's return to his mother, in clear contravention of Michelle's and Joel's rights. Michelle, on her own or acting through her mother, had a clearly established right to custody of Joel, of which right defendants reasonably should have known. Joel had a corresponding clearly established right to familial association with his mother. Defendants have not overcome the threshold inquiry with respect to Michelle's and Joel's claims. To the contrary, the threshold question is answered in favor of Michelle and Joel. 24 Even if defendants had a right to take temporary custody of Joel, defendants had a corresponding obligation to afford Michelle and Joel an adequate post-deprivation hearing. Doe v. Hennepin County, 858 F.2d 1325, 1329 (8th Cir.1988). The right to an adequate post-deprivation hearing was clearly established in February of 1995. Defendants scheduled the hearing for March 15, 1995, nearly a month after taking Joel into custody. Further, defendants objected to an earlier hearing, claiming administrative inconvenience. Michelle's and Joel's first opportunity for a due process hearing was seventeen days after Joel was taken into custody. Under the facts of this case, seventeen days was not a prompt hearing. 25 Defendants contend that plaintiffs could have obtained a lawyer and availed themselves of certain procedural remedies at an earlier time, thus satisfying their right to due process. We cannot accept this contention. There may be some analogy in observing that any person whose clear constitutional rights are violated has the right to later employ counsel. When the state deprives parents and children of their right to familial integrity, even in an emergency situation, without a prior due process hearing, the state has the burden to initiate prompt judicial proceedings to provide a post deprivation hearing. Weller v. Dep't. of Soc. Serv. for Baltimore, 901 F.2d 387, 396 (4th Cir.1990). The Second Circuit held, in Duchesne v. Sugarman, 566 F.2d 817, 828 (2nd Cir.1977): 26 In this situation, the state cannot constitutionally sit back and wait for the parent to institute judicial proceedings. It cannot ... [adopt] for itself an attitude of 'if you don't like it, sue.'  The burden of initiating judicial review must be shouldered by the government. We deal here with an uneven situation in which the government has a far greater familiarity with the legal procedures available for testing its action. 27 In such a case, the state cannot be allowed to take action depriving individuals of a most basic and essential liberty interest which those uneducated and uninformed in legal intricacies may allow to go unchallenged for a long period of time. 28 We find Duchesne particularly persuasive where defendants are alleged, in the present case, to have provided plaintiffs with false information as to how they should proceed. The fact that other remedies may have been available to plaintiffs to secure their constitutional rights to a post-deprivation hearing does not relieve defendants of their obligation to provide such a hearing. Of even more concern is the failure to provide Joel his right to a prompt post-deprivation hearing; he was clearly not in a position to secure that right for himself. 29 Defendants contend the supervisory officials, Jines, Cox and Blair, are immune from liability. Clearly, claims based upon respondeat superior are not cognizable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Frey v. City of Herculaneum, 44 F.3d at 672. The claims against the supervisory officials, however, are based upon failure to properly train and supervise as well as creating, encouraging and following the unconstitutional custom and practice of detaining children for thirty days without a due process hearing. Both these claims are cognizable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Tilson v. Forrest City Police Department, 28 F.3d 802, 806 (8th Cir.1994); Weiler v. Purkett, 104 F.3d 149, 151 (8th Cir.1997).