Opinion ID: 4520785
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment Claims

Text: “The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.” Andrews v. Hickman County, 700 F.3d 845, 854 (6th Cir. 2012). This Court has held that the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement governs social workers just like any other government official. See, e.g., id. at 859 (“[A] social worker, like other state officers, is governed by the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.”); accord Kovacic, 724 F.3d at 695. And children are entitled to the Fourth Amendment’s protections even when they are away from home and attending public school. See, e.g., Safford Unified Sch. Dist. No. 1 v. Redding, 557 U.S. 364, 370–71 (2009); New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 334 (1985). Pursuant to these principles, Plaintiffs B.O.B., B.R.B., E.M.S., and E.E.S., through their Next Friend, argue that Kammer (acting at the behest of Campbell) violated their Fourth Amendment rights by seizing them from their public-school classrooms and interviewing them without reasonable suspicion, a warrant, or consent. In response, Defendants argue that they are entitled to qualified immunity because it was not clearly established that social workers are bound by the Fourth Amendment when conducting in-school interviews pursuant to a child No. 19-5208 Schulkers, et al. v. Kammer, et al. Page 13 abuse investigation. They point out that neither the Supreme Court nor this Court has ever held that analogous conduct by a social worker violates the Fourth Amendment. For the reasons that follow, we find that Plaintiffs did not have a clearly established Fourth Amendment right to be free from warrantless, in-school interviews by social workers investigating child abuse at the relevant time. This is because our precedent is unclear about the role of the Fourth Amendment in the specific factual circumstances alleged here, i.e., when social workers perform an in-school interview of a child pursuant to an abuse investigation. However, we also exercise our discretion to consider the second prong of the qualified immunity inquiry and conclude that Defendants’ alleged conduct in this case was unconstitutional. See Pearson, 555 U.S. at 236. We hold that, at a minimum, social workers investigating child abuse must have “some definite and articulable evidence giving rise to a reasonable suspicion that a child has been abused or is in imminent danger of abuse” before seizing a child from his or her school classroom without a warrant and when no other exception to the warrant requirement applies. Doe v. Heck, 327 F.3d 492, 515 (7th Cir. 2003) (quoting Brokaw v. Mercer County, 235 F.3d 1000, 1019 (7th Cir. 2000)).
We first consider whether Plaintiffs’ right was clearly established at the time of Defendants’ conduct. In answering that question, “we look first to decisions of the Supreme Court, then to our own decisions and those of other courts within the circuit, and then to decisions of other Courts of Appeal.” Andrews, 700 F.3d at 853. The Supreme Court has never held that a social worker’s warrantless in-school interview of a child pursuant to a child abuse investigation violates the Fourth Amendment. In 2011, the Supreme Court granted certiorari on this issue but its opinion did not reach the merits of the issue due to mootness. See Camreta v. Greene, 563 U.S. 692, 713–14 (2011). In Camreta, a panel of the Ninth Circuit had found that a child protection agency’s decision to seize and interrogate a child at school without a warrant violated the Fourth Amendment. Greene v. Camreta, 588 F.3d 1011, 1030 (9th Cir. 2009), vacated in part, 563 U.S. 692 (2011), and vacated in part, 661 F.3d 1201 (9th Cir. 2011). However, the Ninth Circuit granted the defendant social worker qualified No. 19-5208 Schulkers, et al. v. Kammer, et al. Page 14 immunity because it found that its “precedent did not clearly establish that the in-school seizure of a student suspected of being the victim of child sexual abuse can be subject to traditional Fourth Amendment protections.” Id. at 1033. Putting to rest a common defense in schoolinterview cases—one that Defendants assert here—the Ninth Circuit “hasten[ed] to note that government officials investigating allegations of child abuse should cease operating on the assumption that a ‘special need’ automatically justifies dispensing with traditional Fourth Amendment protections in this context.” Id. Instead, the Ninth Circuit held that “traditional Fourth Amendment requirements” apply to social workers’ in-school interviews of children. Id. at 1026. In its decision vacating that portion of the Ninth Circuit’s opinion, the Supreme Court found that “the happenstance of [the student’s] moving across country and becoming an adult . . . has frustrated [the defendant’s] ability to challenge the Court of Appeals’ ruling that he must obtain a warrant before interviewing a suspected child abuse victim at school.” Camreta, 563 U.S. at 713–14. On remand, the Ninth Circuit vacated the section of its prior opinion addressing the Fourth Amendment issue. Greene, 661 F.3d at 1201. Following the vacatur for mootness in Camreta, the Supreme Court has not since addressed whether the Fourth Amendment governs a social worker’s warrantless in-school interview of a child pursuant to an abuse investigation. This Court has considered the issue in only one prior case. In Barber v. Miller, 809 F.3d 840 (6th Cir. 2015), we held that a child’s right to avoid warrantless, in-school interviews by social workers on suspicion of child abuse was not clearly established in 2011. Id. at 845. In that case, one of Barber’s family members reported to the state child protective services agency that Barber was neglecting his son. Id. at 842. In response to the report, a state social worker interviewed Barber’s son at school without a warrant or consent. Id. The social worker also interviewed Barber at his home. Id. at 843. Approximately one week later, the social worker again interviewed Barber’s son at school without a warrant or consent. Id. Based on the in-school interviews, the social worker petitioned for a court order to place Barber’s son in protective custody. Id. The court issued the order but returned custody to Barber two days later following a hearing. Id. Barber then sued the social worker on behalf of No. 19-5208 Schulkers, et al. v. Kammer, et al. Page 15 his son, arguing that the warrantless in-school interviews violated his son’s Fourth Amendment rights. Id. This Court upheld the district court’s grant of qualified immunity to the social worker because we found that the child did not have a clearly established Fourth Amendment right “to avoid warrantless, in-school interviews by social workers on suspicion of child abuse” as of 2011. Id. at 845. Because we granted qualified immunity to the social worker on the ground that the law was not clearly established, we did not reach the question of whether the social worker’s warrantless in-school interviews of the child were in fact unconstitutional. See id. at 845–47. However, we did consider Barber’s argument that the warrantless, in-school interviews contravened the holdings of two of our cases decided after 2011: Kovacic v. Cuyahoga County Department of Children & Family Services, 724 F.3d 687 (6th Cir. 2013), and Andrews v. Hickman County, 700 F.3d 845 (6th Cir. 2012). Distinguishing those cases on the basis that they involved seizures of a child within the home, we held that neither Kovacic nor Andrews governs a social worker’s warrantless interview of a child that takes place in the school. See Barber, 809 F.3d at 845–47. We stated that “[i]nasmuch as both decisions turned on the greater constitutional concerns surrounding government intrusion into a citizen’s home . . . they offer [the plaintiff] little support in arguing that the in-school interviews violated [his] clearly established Fourth Amendment rights.” Id. at 846 (citing Kovacic, 724 F.3d at 698–99; Andrews, 700 F.3d at 856, 859). Thus, we found that the plaintiff-child fell short “of demonstrating that [his] Fourth Amendment rights in the context of warrantless, in-school interviews by social workers on suspicion of child abuse were clearly established in our circuit at the time of the interviews.” Id. at 847. Following Barber, this Court has not had another occasion to consider the constitutionality of in-school interviews like the one at issue here. Therefore, we can find no reason to depart from Barber’s holding that the law surrounding in-school interviews by social workers is not clearly established in this circuit. Plaintiffs’ argument that Andrews and Kovacic supply the requisite clearly established law to overcome Defendants’ qualified immunity defense is unavailing because this Court in Barber held that those cases do not govern a social worker’s conduct in the school setting. See id. at 846–47. By distinguishing Andrews and Kovacic on No. 19-5208 Schulkers, et al. v. Kammer, et al. Page 16 their facts, Barber suggested that the Fourth Amendment could proscribe different conduct in the home versus the school setting for purposes of child abuse investigations. Moreover, Barber did not define what conduct, if any, the Fourth Amendment proscribes in the school setting because it declined to reach the merits of the underlying constitutional claim. Therefore, we find that a reasonable social worker in Defendants’ position would not have known that Plaintiffs had a Fourth Amendment right to be free from the in-school interviews that occurred. Cf. United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259, 271 (1997) (explaining that “[i]n some circumstances, as when an earlier case expressly leaves open whether a general rule applies to the particular type of conduct at issue, a very high degree of prior factual particularity may be necessary” in order to show that a right was clearly established). Defendants Kammer and Campbell are entitled to qualified immunity on this claim.
Because we find that the district court should have granted summary judgment in favor of Defendants Kammer and Campbell on Plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment claim, we do not need to decide whether their conduct was in fact unconstitutional. See, e.g., Pearson, 555 U.S. at 236. However, after carefully considering the Supreme Court’s guidance on when a court of appeals should exercise its discretion to reach the underlying constitutional question in a qualified immunity case, we decide to reach that question now in order to “promote[] the development of constitutional precedent,” id., and “promote[] clarity in the legal standards for official conduct, to the benefit of both the officers and the general public,” Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 609 (1999). See also, e.g., Plumhoff, 572 U.S. at 774 (exercising the Court’s discretion to resolve the underlying constitutional claim in order to develop constitutional precedent in an area in which the qualified immunity defense is typically available to defendants). For the reasons that follow, we hold that under Plaintiffs’ version of the facts, Kammer and Campbell violated the plaintiff children’s Fourth Amendment rights by seizing them from their classrooms without a warrant and without any reasonable suspicion of child abuse or neglect. The threshold question to determine if Plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment rights were violated is whether Plaintiffs were “seized” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. “A seizure occurs when, ‘in view of all the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person No. 19-5208 Schulkers, et al. v. Kammer, et al. Page 17 would have believed he was not free to leave.’” O’Malley v. City of Flint, 652 F.3d 662, 668 (6th Cir. 2011) (quoting United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 554 (1980)). Courts generally should take into account the plaintiff’s age when determining if a reasonable person would have felt free to leave. E.g., Jones v. Hunt, 410 F.3d 1221, 1226 (10th Cir. 2005); Heck, 327 F.3d at 510. In the present case, Defendants do not argue that Plaintiffs were not seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and for good reason. Plaintiffs allege that per Campbell’s instructions, Kammer and another CHFS social worker went to a public elementary school to interview three of the Schulkers’ children, B.O.B. (age 8), B.R.B. (age 9), and E.M.S. (age 9), and then went to a public middle school to interview the Schulkers’ fourth child, E.E.S. (age 13). The social workers did not obtain a warrant or parental consent to conduct the interviews. At the social workers’ behest, the school staff removed each child from his or her classrooms, and each child was brought into a room with Kammer and the other social worker where the door was then shut. School personnel were not permitted to stay with the children during the interview and each interview lasted approximately thirty minutes, during which time the children were questioned about “mommy using drugs,” alcohol use, and whether there was arguing or physical violence in the house. These facts, which Defendants have not rebutted, clearly demonstrate a genuine factual dispute as to whether a reasonable child in Plaintiffs’ position would have felt free to leave the interview. See Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587 (1986) (when evaluating a motion for summary judgment, a court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party). Having determined that Plaintiffs were seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, the next question is whether the seizures were reasonable. In general, a search or seizure must be supported by probable cause in order to comply with the Fourth Amendment. E.g., T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 340. However, there are several exceptions to the probable cause requirement, including consent, exigent circumstances, and in some instances, “when ‘special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement, make the warrant and probable-cause requirement impracticable.’” Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 873 (1987) (quoting T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 351 (Blackmun, J., concurring in judgment)). Thus, in New Jersey v. T.L.O., the No. 19-5208 Schulkers, et al. v. Kammer, et al. Page 18 Supreme Court held that “the accommodation of the privacy interests of schoolchildren with the substantial need of teachers and administrators for freedom to maintain order in the schools does not require strict adherence to the requirement that searches be based on probable cause to believe that the subject of the search has violated or is violating the law.” 469 U.S. at 341. Instead, the Court held that “the legality of a search of a student should depend simply on the reasonableness, under all the circumstances, of the search.” Id. Where the special needs doctrine applies, a court must determine the reasonableness of the search or seizure pursuant to the modified reasonableness inquiry of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20 (1968). See T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 341. Under this inquiry, a court should first determine “whether the . . . action was justified at its inception,” and second, the court should determine whether the search or seizure “was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.” Id. at 341–42 (alteration in original) (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 20). There is some disagreement in the circuits regarding whether the special needs exception applies to a social worker’s in-school interview of a child pursuant to a child abuse investigation, and this Court has not yet spoken to the issue. As discussed above, in a decision that has since been vacated, the Ninth Circuit held that the Fourth Amendment’s traditional probable cause standard applies to a social worker’s seizure of a child from school pursuant to a child abuse investigation. See Greene, 588 F.3d at 1030. Other circuits have indicated that the lesser, modified reasonableness standard of New Jersey v. T.L.O. may govern a social worker’s seizure of a child from a public school pursuant to an abuse investigation. See Heck, 327 F.3d at 513–14 (applying the probable cause standard to evaluate the reasonableness of a social worker’s seizure of a child from a private school, but noting that a modified reasonableness standard may apply to seizures on public school grounds). In Jones v. Hunt, the Tenth Circuit considered which standard might govern a social worker’s interview of a child at a public school pursuant to an abuse investigation, but the court found that it was ultimately unnecessary to determine whether a special needs exception applied because the social worker’s conduct in that case failed even under T.L.O.’s modified reasonableness standard. See Jones, 410 F.3d at 1228 (“It is ultimately unnecessary for us to decide what Fourth Amendment test is most appropriate in this case ‘because the conduct alleged in [this] case would violate the most minimal standard of which we can conceive.’” (alteration in original) (quoting Snell v. Tunnell, 920 F.2d 673, 698 (10th Cir. No. 19-5208 Schulkers, et al. v. Kammer, et al. Page 19 1990))). The same is true here. In the present case, we do not need to decide which Fourth Amendment standard governs a social worker’s in-school interview of a child pursuant to an abuse investigation because Defendants’ alleged conduct fails even the modified reasonableness standard of New Jersey v. T.L.O. Applying that standard to this case, we find that Defendants’ conduct violated Plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment rights. Plaintiffs allege that before the CHFS Defendants conducted the interviews, Defendants knew (1) that St. Elizabeth staff believed the pre-delivery test of Holly’s urine was a false positive and were permitting Holly to continue to breastfeed A.M.S., (2) that Holly’s second confirmatory urine test results were negative, and (3) that the results of the umbilical cord testing were also negative. Therefore, Plaintiffs allege that Defendants did not have any plausible suspicion that the Schulkers’ children were subjected to abuse or neglect at the time they conducted the interviews. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Plaintiffs, a reasonable jury could find that Defendants’ seizure of Plaintiffs was not “justified at its inception.” T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 341 (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 20). Moreover, based on these facts, Plaintiffs have demonstrated that the state did not have any significant interest in interviewing the children that “was reasonably related in scope” to the seizures at issue. See id. In fact, Plaintiffs have alleged that prior to the interviews, Defendants did not have any legitimate reason to suspect Holly of child abuse or neglect. Thus, under these facts, we find that Defendants violated Plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment rights by seizing them from their classrooms and subjecting them to interrogation without any suspicion of child abuse, and without obtaining a warrant or consent. We hold that the Fourth Amendment governs a social worker’s in-school interview of a child pursuant to a child abuse investigation, and thereby clarify our decision in Barber v. Miller, 809 F.3d at 847. At a minimum, a social worker must have reasonable suspicion of child abuse before conducting an in-school interview without a warrant or consent. Therefore, Defendants’ conduct in this case, as alleged by Plaintiffs, was unconstitutional because it failed to satisfy even the lesser modified reasonableness standard of New Jersey v. T.L.O. The seizures were not “justified at [their] inception” and they were not “reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.” T.L.O., 569 U.S. at 341 (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 20). No. 19-5208 Schulkers, et al. v. Kammer, et al. Page 20