Court Opinion

ID: 9956612
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-02 17:01:08.015674+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:17:41.805084
License: Public Domain

FOR PUBLICATION

  UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
       FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

SYDNEY RIEMAN; K. B., a minor             No. 22-56054
by and through his Guardian Ad
Litem, Steven L. Rieman,                     D.C. No.
                                          5:20-cv-00362-
              Plaintiffs-Appellees,          CBM-SP

 v.
                                           AMENDED
GLORIA VAZQUEZ; MIRTA                       OPINION
JOHNSON,

              Defendants-Appellants,

and

DOES, 2-10 inclusive; KRISTINE
BROWN, also known as Doe 2,

              Defendants.

       Appeal from the United States District Court
           for the Central District of California
      Consuelo B. Marshall, District Judge, Presiding

         Argued and Submitted December 4, 2023
                  Pasadena, California
2                       RIEMAN V. VAZQUEZ

                     Filed March 5, 2024
                    Amended April 2, 2024

    Before: CARLOS T. BEA, MILAN D. SMITH, JR., and
          LAWRENCE VANDYKE, Circuit Judges.

            Opinion by Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr.

                          SUMMARY*

                   Social Worker Immunity

    The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of absolute
and qualified immunity to two County of San Bernardino
social workers in an action brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983 by Sydney Rieman and her child, K.B., by and
through his guardian ad litem Steven Rieman, alleging that
defendants violated plaintiffs’ Fourth and Fourteenth
Amendment rights by (1) failing to provide them with notice
of a juvenile detention hearing in which the County’s Child
and Family Services sought custody of K.B.; and (2)
providing false information to the Juvenile Court about why
Ms. Rieman was not noticed for the hearing.
    The panel rejected defendants’ assertion that they were
entitled to absolute immunity for actions taken in their quasi-
prosecutorial role as social workers. Although social
workers may enjoy absolute immunity from suit for
discretionary, quasi-prosecutorial decisions to institute court

*
 This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has
been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
                     RIEMAN V. VAZQUEZ                      3

dependency proceedings to take custody away from parents,
here neither the actions nor omissions for which defendants
were being sued—i.e., providing false information to the
Juvenile Court and failing to give notice of the detention
hearing—were similar to discretionary decisions about
whether to prosecute. Moreover, absolute immunity did not
apply to the Riemans’ claim that defendants failed to give
them notice of the detention hearing as such notice was
mandatory and, therefore, unlike the discretionary decision
to initiate prosecution.
    The panel held that defendants were not entitled to
qualified immunity from suit for failing to provide notice of
the hearing. Ms. Rieman had a due process right to such
notice and that right was clearly established. It was clear at
the time that parents could not be summarily deprived of the
care and custody of their children without notice and a
hearing, except when the children were in imminent danger.
    The panel held that defendants were not entitled to
qualified immunity for their misrepresentation to the
Juvenile Court about why Ms. Rieman was not noticed for
the hearing. A reasonable social worker in defendants’ shoes
would have understood, based on prior decisional law, that
providing incomplete and false information to the Juvenile
Court about Ms. Rieman’s whereabouts to convince the
court that the social workers had satisfied the due process
notice requirement constituted judicial deception.
4                    RIEMAN V. VAZQUEZ

                        COUNSEL

Donnie R. Cox (argued), Law Office of Donnie R. Cox,
Carlsbad, California; Sarah E. Marinho, Marinho Law Firm,
San Jose, California; Paul W. Leehey, Law Office of Paul
W. Leehey, Fallbrook, California; for Plaintiffs-Appellees.
James C. Jardin (argued), Collins and Collins LLP, Orange,
California; Adam A. Ainslie, Collins and Collins LLP,
Pasadena, California; Christie B. Swiss, Collins and Collins
LLP, Carlsbad, California; for Defendants-Appellants.

                         OPINION

M. SMITH, Circuit Judge:

    Sydney Rieman (Ms. Rieman) and her child, K. B., a
minor by and through his guardian ad litem, Steven L.
Rieman, filed suit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that
social workers Mirta Johnson and Gloria Vazquez, among
others, violated the Riemans’ constitutional rights. Vazquez
and Johnson appeal from the district court’s order denying
them absolute and qualified immunity. We affirm.
              FACTUAL BACKGROUND
    On the afternoon of September 6, 2018, twenty-day-old
K. B. fell off the bed where Ms. Rieman had placed him
shortly before she went to the bathroom to wash her hands.
According to Ms. Rieman, she did not see what precipitated
the fall. Upon witnessing the fall, Ms. Rieman and her
mother rushed K. B. to the nearest hospital, High Desert
Medical Center (HDMC). The medical personnel at HDMC
examined K. B. and observed him for four hours, but they
                     RIEMAN V. VAZQUEZ                     5

did not perform any diagnostic studies, such as a
computerized tomography (CT) scan, X-ray, or ultrasound
before K. B. left the hospital.
    Out of an abundance of caution as a mandated reporter,
an HDMC nurse reported the incident to San Bernardino
County’s Child and Family Services (CFS) hotline. The
emergency response referral listed Ms. Rieman’s home
address and phone number. The following morning,
Johnson, a supervising social worker, picked up the
emergency response referral. Johnson assigned the case to
Vazquez. Shortly after receiving her case assignment,
Vazquez went to Ms. Rieman’s home to conduct her
investigation of the referral. When Vazquez advised Ms.
Rieman that the family should take the baby to Loma Linda
University Medical Center (LLUMC) for further evaluation,
the family asked for an opportunity to speak with Vazquez’s
supervisor, Johnson, which was granted.
    Ms. Rieman, her mother, and her stepfather then drove
to the Yucca Valley CFS office to meet with Johnson. On
the way, the family made an appointment for K. B. to be seen
by Dr. Kasko, an obstetrician-gynecologist, for a follow-up
examination. Once they arrived at the CFS office, Johnson
expressed concern over the possibility of undetected internal
injuries and urged the family to consider taking K. B. to
LLUMC to be evaluated by another doctor. Ms. Rieman
informed Johnson that an HMDC doctor had expressed
concern over the level of radiation to which K. B. would be
exposed if a CT scan were performed. At no point during
this meeting or in any other conversations with CFS did its
representatives inform Ms. Rieman that CFS would seek a
warrant if she did not take K. B. to LLUMC.
6                     RIEMAN V. VAZQUEZ

     Shortly after the family left the CFS office, Vazquez and
Johnson began drafting an application for a detention
warrant. Upon reviewing the application and finding
probable cause, the Juvenile Court issued a temporary
detention warrant pursuant to § 306(a)(1) of the California
Welfare and Institutions Code. The warrant authorized law
enforcement to enter Ms. Rieman’s home in Yucca Valley,
to locate K. B., to temporarily detain K. B. for placement
with a licensed approved foster home or relative, and to seek
a forensic interview and forensic medical examinations
while excluding Ms. Rieman from those examinations.
Under California law, the temporary detainment could only
last for forty-eight hours, “excluding nonjudicial days,” after
which K. B. would be returned to Ms. Rieman’s custody
unless CFS filed a petition “within said period of time . . . to
declare [the child] a dependent child . . . .” Cal. Welf. & Inst.
Code § 313(a).
    Law enforcement and Vazquez attempted to serve the
temporary detention warrant at Ms. Rieman’s home address
twice that evening, but no one answered the door. The next
morning, on September 8, 2018, another law enforcement
officer attempted to serve the warrant at Ms. Rieman’s
home, but again, there was no response. Vazquez and the
officer made a fourth and final attempt later that afternoon
to no avail. The parties dispute exactly why these service
attempts were unsuccessful. Some facts in the record
suggest that Ms. Rieman and her family were deliberately
evading service of the warrant. The Riemans, however,
contend they were unaware of the warrant and were merely
avoiding contact with Vazquez, whom they viewed as
hostile.
   In the days following the unsuccessful service attempts
of the warrant, Vazquez began preparing a juvenile
                     RIEMAN V. VAZQUEZ                      7

dependency petition and detention report pursuant to § 300
of the California Welfare and Institutions Code. In preparing
these documents, Vazquez scheduled the accompanying
detention hearing for September 12, 2018, at 8:00 AM. In
the detention report, which both Vazquez and Johnson
ultimately signed, they claimed that Ms. Rieman was “not
noticed” for the detention hearing because her “whereabouts
[were] unknown.” They also listed a different telephone
number than the one that was listed for Ms. Rieman in the
original emergency response referral compiled by CFS.
Vazquez ultimately filed the petition and report on
September 11, 2018.
    Meanwhile, it is undisputed that Ms. Rieman’s family
attempted to contact CFS on several occasions. Despite their
acknowledged attempts to get in touch with CFS, Vazquez
and Johnson never called or otherwise attempted to notify
Ms. Rieman that a detention hearing concerning her child
was scheduled to take place on the morning of September
12, 2018. Therefore, when the Juvenile Court held the
detention hearing on the morning of September 12, 2018,
Ms. Rieman did not appear.
    At the hearing, the court ordered K. B. to be detained and
removed from his mother’s care and custody and placed in
the custody of CFS. The court also ordered supervised
visitation between the child and the mother once a week for
two hours and that an evidentiary forensic medical
examination be performed. Lastly, the court issued a
warrant of apprehension and set the matter for another
conference to take place nearly a month later, on October 10,
2018.
   Two days after the hearing, Ms. Rieman learned of its
occurrence and that there was an active warrant of
8                    RIEMAN V. VAZQUEZ

apprehension for K. B. Shortly after learning these facts,
Ms. Rieman and the family provided CFS with additional
medical records regarding K. B. from the prior week.
However, representatives of CFS informed Ms. Rieman that
the issue was out of their hands, as CFS could no longer
withdraw the warrant. Three days later, Ms. Rieman took K.
B. to LLUMC. At the hospital, Ms. Rieman was forced to
relinquish custody of K. B. to a law enforcement officer who
arrived at the hospital pursuant to the warrant of
apprehension. K. B. was not returned to Ms. Rieman’s
custody until November 20, 2018, almost two months later.
Two months after that, the court dismissed the dependency
proceedings upon CFS’s request. Because the proceedings
were dismissed, the California Court of Appeal held that Ms.
Rieman’s appeals of the Juvenile Court’s orders were moot.
               PROCEDURAL HISTORY
    On February 24, 2020, the Riemans filed suit in federal
district court pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In their first
amended complaint, the Riemans alleged that Vazquez and
Johnson, among others, violated the Riemans’ Fourth and
Fourteenth Amendment rights (1) by failing to provide them
with notice of the detention hearing and (2) by providing
false information to the Juvenile Court about why Ms.
Rieman was not noticed for the hearing. On July 12, 2022,
the parties filed dueling summary judgment motions. In
their motion, Vazquez and Johnson argued to the district
court that they are entitled to absolute immunity for their
quasi-prosecutorial decisions in instituting the juvenile
dependency proceedings and entitled to qualified immunity
because they did not violate any clearly established
constitutional rights.
                     RIEMAN V. VAZQUEZ                     9

    On November 1, 2022, the district court held that
Vazquez and Johnson were not entitled to absolute or
qualified immunity. The court also granted the Riemans’
motion for summary judgment “as to [their] first and second
claims for violation of [their] Fourth and Fourteenth
Amendment rights” on the grounds that Vazquez and
Johnson failed to provide the Riemans with notice of the
detention hearing and engaged in judicial deception.
Vazquez and Johnson timely appealed.
   JURISDICTION AND STANDARD OF REVIEW
    We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 to
review Vazquez and Johnson’s interlocutory appeal of the
district court’s summary judgment order denying them
absolute and qualified immunity. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472
U.S. 511, 525–26, 530 (1985). We review de novo denials
of absolute and qualified immunity. Botello v. Gammick,
413 F.3d 971, 975 (9th Cir. 2005) (absolute immunity), cert.
denied, 546 U.S. 1208 (2006); Robinson v. Prunty, 249 F.3d
862, 865–66 (9th Cir. 2001) (qualified immunity). Where
disputed facts are relevant to the denial of qualified
immunity, however, we determine whether the denial was
appropriate by assuming that the version of material facts as
asserted by the nonmoving party is correct. Jeffers v.
Gomez, 267 F.3d 895, 903 (9th Cir. 2001).
                        ANALYSIS
I. Vazquez and Johnson Are Not Entitled to Absolute
   Immunity.
    Vazquez and Johnson contend they are entitled to
absolute immunity because they are being sued for actions
taken in their quasi-prosecutorial role as social workers.
They argue that “the fundamental question” in evaluating
10                     RIEMAN V. VAZQUEZ

their claim to absolute immunity is “whether conduct
relate[s] to the initiation of a [juvenile] dependency
proceeding,” and that the conduct they are being sued for
“unquestionably is.”       They also emphasize that the
discretionary nature of how they were supposed to give
notice of the detention hearing also weighs in favor of their
being entitled to absolute immunity.
    Defendants in § 1983 suits are generally entitled to only
immunities that existed at common law. See Imbler v.
Pachtman, 542 U.S. 409, 417–18 (1976). Courts have thus
“granted state actors absolute immunity only for those
functions that were critical to the judicial process itself,”
such as “‘initiating a prosecution.’” Miller v. Gammie, 335
F.3d 889, 896 (9th Cir. 2003) (en banc) (quoting Imbler, 424
U.S. at 431).1 It therefore follows that social workers may
enjoy absolute immunity from suit when they make
“discretionary, quasi-prosecutorial decisions to institute
court dependency proceedings to take custody away from
parents.” Id. at 898.
    However, social workers “are not entitled to absolute
immunity from claims that they fabricated evidence during
an investigation or made false statements in a dependency
petition affidavit that they signed under penalty of perjury,
because such actions aren’t similar to discretionary decisions
about whether to prosecute.” Beltran v. Santa Clara Cnty.,
514 F.3d 906, 908 (9th Cir. 2008) (per curiam). Put simply,
“as prosecutors and others investigating criminal matters
have no absolute immunity for their investigatory conduct,”

1
 We have amended this opinion to remove the following phrase from
our citation to Miller: “overruled on other grounds, Sanchez v.
Mayorkas, 141 S. Ct. 1809 (2021).” The Supreme Court’s decision in
Sanchez did not overrule any aspect of our decision in Miller.
                      RIEMAN V. VAZQUEZ                     11

it follows that “social workers conducting investigations
have no such immunity” as well. Id. at 908–09.
    In this case, had the Riemans sued Vazquez and Johnson
for their discretionary decision to institute juvenile
dependency proceedings to take custody of K. B. away from
Ms. Rieman, they likely would have been entitled to absolute
immunity since that decision is inherently prosecutorial. See
Miller, 335 F.3d at 898. However, the Riemans’ suit did not
challenge that quasi-prosecutorial decision. Rather, the
Riemans sued Vazquez and Johnson for their failure to
provide Ms. Rieman with notice of the detention hearing,
despite knowing how to contact her and her parents, and
their acts of judicial deception regarding Ms. Rieman’s
whereabouts.
     The crux of Vazquez and Johnson’s argument is that
since they are being sued for conduct that “relate[s] to the
initiation of a dependency proceeding,” they are absolutely
immune from suit. However, that argument relies upon an
overly broad conception of absolute immunity’s scope. As
we noted in Beltran, a social worker is “not entitled to
absolute immunity from claims that they . . . made false
statements in a dependency petition affidavit . . . because
such actions aren’t similar to discretionary decisions about
whether to prosecute.” 514 F.3d at 908. Surely, the making
of such statements in a dependency petition affidavit
“relate[s]” in some broad sense “to the initiation of a
dependency proceeding,” as Vazquez and Johnson contend,
but such a loose relation is not enough to render those actions
absolutely immune from suit. The actions themselves must
be “similar to discretionary decisions about whether to
prosecute.” Beltran, 514 F.3d at 908. Here, neither the
actions nor omissions for which Vazquez and Johnson are
being sued—i.e., providing false information to the Juvenile
12                    RIEMAN V. VAZQUEZ

Court and failing to give notice of the hearing—are “similar
to discretionary decisions about whether to prosecute.” Id.
Accordingly, Vazquez and Johnson do not enjoy absolute
immunity from suit.
     Moreover, Vazquez and Johnson’s related argument that
“the method of notice” is “discretionary,” does not save their
defenses of absolute immunity. The fact that social workers
have some discretion in how they give notice of a detention
hearing to a parent does not render decisions regarding the
method of notice “similar to discretionary decisions about
whether to prosecute.” Beltran, 514 F.3d at 908. And even
so, the Riemans have not sued Vazquez and Johnson for their
method of notice; the Riemans have sued them for failing to
provide any notice at all. The parties agree that giving notice
of a detention hearing is mandatory under the law. It follows
that giving notice is non-discretionary and very much unlike
the discretionary decision to initiate a prosecution. See
Beltran, 514 F.3d at 908; cf. Antoine v. Byers & Anderson,
Inc., 508 U.S. 429, 436 (1993) (denying absolute immunity
to a court reporter who was “required by statute to ‘recor[d]
verbatim’ court proceedings in their entirety”).
Accordingly, absolute immunity does not apply to the
Riemans’ claim that Vazquez and Johnson failed to give
them notice of the detention hearing as such notice was
mandatory. We therefore affirm the district court’s order
denying Vazquez and Johnson absolute immunity.
II. Vazquez and Johnson Are Not Entitled to Qualified
    Immunity.
    Vazquez and Johnson also contend that they are entitled
to qualified immunity for their conduct relating to the
juvenile dependency proceedings. First, they argue that their
representations to the Juvenile Court about Ms. Rieman’s
                      RIEMAN V. VAZQUEZ                     13

whereabouts do not amount to judicial deception, and even
if they did, the constitutional violation was not clearly
established when they made the statements, and thus
qualified immunity applies.
    Second, Vazquez and Johnson argue on appeal that they
did their best to give Ms. Rieman notice of the detention
hearing through their attempts to serve the temporary
detention warrant, and therefore they did not violate her due
process rights when they failed to contact her about the
detention hearing. They suggest that because no court has
decided these exact set of circumstances regarding notice,
the law is not clearly established, and thus qualified
immunity applies to their failure to give actual notice of the
detention hearing.
    Qualified immunity shields government actors from civil
liability pursuant to § 1983 if “their conduct does not violate
clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which
a reasonable person would have known.” Benavidez v. Cnty.
of San Diego, 993 F.3d 1134, 1151 (9th Cir. 2021). “In
determining whether an officer is entitled to qualified
immunity, [courts] consider (1) whether there has been a
violation of a constitutional right; and (2) whether that right
was clearly established at the time of the officer’s alleged
misconduct.” Lal v. California, 746 F.3d 1112, 1116 (9th
Cir. 2014). A clearly established constitutional right “must
be particularized to the facts of the case.” Davis v. United
States, 854 F.3d 594, 599 (2017) (cleaned up). “Because the
focus is on whether the officer had fair notice that her
conduct was unlawful, reasonableness is judged against the
backdrop of the law at the time of the conduct.” Kisela v.
Hughes, 138 S. Ct. 1148, 1152 (2018).
14                    RIEMAN V. VAZQUEZ

     A. Vazquez and Johnson Are Not Entitled to
        Qualified Immunity from Suit for Failing to
        Provide Notice of the Detention Hearing.
    Vazquez and Johnson do not dispute the district court’s
conclusion that Ms. Rieman had a constitutionally protected
due process right to receive notice of (and an opportunity to
be heard at) the detention hearing where CFS sought custody
of her child. Rather, they suggest that they did not ultimately
violate her rights because they “attempted personal service
of the detention warrant four times over the course of two
days,” and Ms. Rieman evaded those service attempts,
thereby excusing the formal notice requirement.
     However, in the very same sentence in their opening
brief, Vazquez and Johnson acknowledge that all their
service attempts took place “before [they] decid[ed] to
initiate a dependency proceeding.” As the Riemans
correctly point out in their answering brief, “[t]here is no
date [for the detention hearing] on the [temporary]
[d]etention [w]arrant[,] [n]or could there have been, since
the [d]etention [h]earing was not scheduled until after the
attempts were made to serve the [d]etention [w]arrant.”
Therefore, Vazquez and Johnson’s argument that their
unsuccessful attempts to serve the temporary detention
warrant somehow excused or remedied their failure to call
or otherwise notify Ms. Rieman of the detention hearing is
unavailing. The district court was therefore correct to
conclude that Vazquez and Johnson failed to give Ms.
Rieman notice of the detention hearing, thereby violating her
right to such notice.
    A parent’s “whereabouts” being “unknown” only
excuses the notice requirement after “there has been a good
faith attempt to provide notice to a parent” of the detention
                         RIEMAN V. VAZQUEZ                           15

hearing. In re Justice P., 19 Cal. Rptr. 3d 801, 806 (Cal.
App. 2004). It is undisputed that no such attempt was ever
made. That the parties dispute whether the Riemans were
aware of the temporary detention warrant and were therefore
evading it by hiding out in a different county is immaterial.
Vazquez and Johnson knew how to contact Ms. Rieman
about the detention hearing, but they chose not to even try.
     To the extent that Vazquez and Johnson imply that Ms.
Rieman’s right to notice was not “clearly established” at the
time they violated it, that argument is foreclosed by the fact
that long before September 2018, “it was clear that a parent
. . . could not be summarily deprived of th[e care and]
custody [of his children] without notice and a hearing, except
when the children were in imminent danger.”2 Ram v.
Rubin, 118 F.3d 1306, 1310 (9th Cir. 1997) (citing Caldwell
v. LeFaver, 928 F.2d 331, 333 (9th Cir. 1991)). Vazquez
and Johnson’s argument is further undermined by the fact
that long before September 2018, it was clear under
California law that after a social worker files a dependency
petition, she must give notice to the child’s parents “as soon
as possible . . . .” Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 290.1(c).
“Service of the notice shall be written or oral,” id. § 290.1(e),
and the notice must include “[t]he date, time, and place of
the hearing,” id. § 290.1(d)(1). And the means of giving
notice to the parent “must be such as one desirous of actually
informing the [parent] might reasonably adopt to accomplish

2
  Vazquez and Johnson never asked the Juvenile Court to excuse the
notice requirement because K. B. was in imminent danger. Instead, they
represented to the court that Ms. Rieman was “not noticed” for the
hearing because her “whereabouts [were] unknown.” Vazquez and
Johnson only discussed “substantial danger to [K. B.’s] physical health”
with respect to why they believed the court should ultimately order his
removal from Ms. Rieman’s custody and care.
16                   RIEMAN V. VAZQUEZ

it.” In re Antonio E., 144 Cal. Rptr. 466, 472 (Cal. Ct. App.
1978). Considering these clear statements of law, we
conclude that “any reasonable official in [Vazquez or
Johnson’s] positions would have understood that he was
violating” Ms. Rieman’s due process rights by failing to
provide her with notice of the detention hearing. Kisela, 138
S. Ct. at 1153. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s
denial of qualified immunity with respect to Vazquez and
Johnson’s failure to provide Ms. Rieman with notice of the
hearing.
     B. Vazquez and Johnson Are Not Entitled to
        Qualified Immunity for Their Misrepresentation
        to the Juvenile Court About Why Ms. Rieman
        Was Not Noticed for the Hearing.
     An individual has a well-established constitutional right
to be free from deception in the presentation of evidence
during juvenile dependency proceedings.             Greene v.
Camreta, 588 F.3d 1011, 1034–35 (9th Cir. 2009), vacated
in part on other grounds, 563 U.S. 692 (2011); see also
Whitaker v. Garcetti, 486 F.3d 572, 581 (9th Cir. 2007) (“A
seizure conducted pursuant to a warrant obtained by judicial
deception violates the Fourth Amendment.”); Costanich v.
Dep’t of Soc. & Health Servs., 627 F.3d 1101, 1108 (9th Cir.
2010) (“[D]eliberately fabricating evidence in civil child
abuse proceedings violates the Due Process clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment when a liberty or property interest is
at stake . . . .”). “[G]overnment perjury and the knowing use
of false evidence are absolutely and obviously irreconcilable
with the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of Due Process
in [the] courts.” Hardwick v. Cnty. of Orange, 844 F.3d
1112, 1119 (9th Cir. 2017). “There are no circumstances in
a dependency proceeding that would permit government
officials to bear false witness against a parent.” Id.
                           RIEMAN V. VAZQUEZ                            17

    To support a § 1983 claim that a social worker engaged
in judicial deception, a plaintiff must show “(1) a
misrepresentation or omission (2) made deliberately or with
a reckless disregard for the truth, that was (3) material to the
judicial decision.” Scanlon v. Cnty. of Los Angeles, 92 F.4th
781, 799 (9th Cir. 2024). Misrepresentations or omissions
are “‘material’ . . . if the Juvenile Court would have declined
to issue the order had [the social worker] been truthful.”
Greene, 588 F.3d at 1035.
    Here, it is undisputed that, despite having Ms. Rieman’s
correct telephone number, and despite the Riemans’ repeated
attempts to contact CFS, Vazquez and Johnson never
attempted to call Ms. Rieman or otherwise inform her or her
family about the time and place of the detention hearing.
Had they told the Juvenile Court that they did not provide
notice to Ms. Rieman because they had never attempted to
do so, the Juvenile Court could not (and would not) have
proceeded with the hearing and ordered that K. B. be
removed from Ms. Rieman’s care and custody.3 Therefore,
Vazquez and Johnson’s representation to the Juvenile Court
that Ms. Rieman was “not noticed” because her
“whereabouts [were] unknown” was materially false.4
    Vazquez and Johnson’s related argument that qualified
immunity should still apply because “it is not ‘clearly
established’ that it would be a due process violation to claim
a parent’s whereabouts were unknown based on the facts as

3
    Counsel for Vazquez and Johnson conceded this point at oral argument.
4
  In the parties’ joint statement of undisputed facts, Vazquez and Johnson
conceded this interpretation of the detention report, i.e., they “informed
the [c]ourt in the [d]etention [r]eport that [Ms. Rieman] was ‘not noticed’
for the [d]etention [h]earing because her ‘whereabouts [were]
unknown.’”
18                    RIEMAN V. VAZQUEZ

known to [them],” is foreclosed by our decision in
Hardwick, 844 F.3d 1112. In that case, we observed that
“general statements of the law are not inherently incapable
of giving fair and clear warning, and in some instances a
general constitutional rule already identified in the
decisional law may apply with obvious clarity to the specific
conduct in question, even though the very action in question
has not previously been held unlawful.” Id. at 1117 (cleaned
up). The “salient question . . . is whether the state of the law”
at the time of their misconduct gave the social workers “fair
warning that their [misconduct] was unconstitutional.” Id.
(cleaned up).
    Here, a reasonable social worker in Vazquez and
Johnson’s shoes would have understood, based on prior
decisional law, that providing incomplete and false
information to the Juvenile Court to convince the court the
social worker had satisfied the due process notice
requirement constitutes judicial deception. Long before
September 2018, it was clear that “[t]here are no
circumstances in a dependency proceeding that would
permit government officials to bear false witness against a
parent.” Id. at 1119; see also Scanlon, 92 F.4th at 805
(observing that “[t]he right to be free from judicial
deception” in child custody matters “was clearly established
prior to 2016”). That the Riemans have failed to identify a
case that specifically evaluates “the very action in question”
does not change the analysis. Hardwick, 844 F.3d at 1117.
It is obvious that the prohibition against bearing false
witness applies to representations that a social worker makes
about a parent’s whereabouts, especially when those
representations will determine whether a juvenile court will
proceed with a hearing to remove a child from that parent’s
custody without hearing from the parent first.
                     RIEMAN V. VAZQUEZ                     19

    The fact that the right to be free from judicial deception
arises in part under the Fourth Amendment also does not
save Vazquez and Johnson’s qualified immunity defense.
While it is true that specificity in past decisional law is
especially important in the Fourth Amendment context
where law enforcement officers often have to make quick
decisions with significant consequences, that principle more
appropriately applies in excessive force cases arising under
the Fourth Amendment. See id. at 1119. In this case,
Vazquez and Johnson’s acts of judicial deception “were not
made under pressing circumstances requiring prompt action,
or those providing ambiguous or conflicting guidance,” such
as when a law enforcement officer is faced with a sudden
threat of deadly force in a public setting. Id. Rather,
Vazquez and Johnson were able to draft the juvenile
dependency petition and detention report over the course of
several days and had ample time to attempt to contact Ms.
Rieman about the time and place of the detention hearing,
which was mandatory under the law. Accordingly, we
affirm the district court’s order denying Vazquez and
Johnson qualified immunity from suit for their
representations to the Juvenile Court about Ms. Rieman’s
whereabouts.
                      CONCLUSION
   For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district
court’s order denying absolute and qualified immunity to
Vazquez and Johnson.