Opinion ID: 148932
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Deprivation of Familial Companionship Claims

Text: The Crowes and the Housers each alleged that their Fourteenth Amendment rights to familial companionship were violated by Michael's and Aaron's detentions. Additionally, the Crowes allege that defendants denied them their Fourteenth Amendment rights to familial companionship by placing Michael and Shannon in protective custody prior to Michael's arrest. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of defendants as to the Crowes' and Housers' detention claims on the ground that Michael and Aaron's arrests were supported by probable cause and thus their detentions did not constitute unwarranted governmental interference with the families' relationships. Crowe I, 303 F.Supp.2d at 1098-99; Crowe II, 359 F.Supp.2d at 1039. Because Michael's and Aaron's continued detentions were wrongfully justified by their illegally coerced confessions, we reverse. It is well established that a parent has a fundamental liberty interest in the companionship and society of his or her child and that the state's interference with that liberty interest without due process of law is remediable under [42 U.S.C. § ] 1983. Lee v. City of Los Angeles, 250 F.3d 668, 685 (9th Cir.2001) (internal quotation marks omitted) (alteration in Lee ); ( see also Smith v. City of Fontana, 818 F.2d 1411, 1418 (9th Cir.1987), overruled on other grounds by Hodgers-Durgin v. de la Vina, 199 F.3d 1037 (9th Cir.1999); Kelson v. City of Springfield, 767 F.2d 651, 654-55 (9th Cir.1985)). [U]nwarranted state interference with the relationship between parent and child violates substantive due process. Fontana, 818 F.2d at 1418. [23] The district court granted summary judgment against the Crowes' and Housers' claims on the ground that Michael's and Aaron's arrests were justified by probable cause. However, the lack of familial companionship that the Crowes and Housers experienced was not due, in any significant part, to the boys' arrests; it was due to the boys' incarceration. Thus, the relevant consideration is not whether the boys' were wrongfully arrested; it is whether they were wrongfully detained. We conclude that the boys were wrongfully detained. Their coerced confessions were introduced at their Dennis H. hearing, where it was determined that they would remain incarcerated. However, the boys' confessions were coerced and thus not legally sufficient grounds upon which to make a pre-trial detention determination. Having conducted the interrogations, the officers were aware both that the confessions were coerced and that the confessions could be used to keep the boys in jail. We reverse the district court's grant of summary judgment as to this claim. The district court denied summary judgment as to the Crowes' familial companionship claim based on the placement of Michael and Shannon in protective custody on the ground that defendants failed to demonstrate that the placement was warranted under applicable California law. Crowe II, 359 F.Supp.2d at 1039-40. We agree with the district court and affirm its denial.