No. 23-1372
Six Circuit
Opinion by Judge McKeague
Date Rendered: February 8, 2024
Issue: Whether social worker and supervisor employed by state Children Protective Services can assert qualified immunity as a defense to constitutional violations when removing children from parental custody pending investigation.
Father and Mother divorced in 2013. In 2015, Mother disclosed concerns children were being sexually assaulted by Father to emergency-room physicians. Michigan Children’s Protective Services received a third-party report of actual or suspected child abuse and assigned Social Worker to investigate. Father gave consent to removal of Children but claims he subsequently requested to have the children back, withdrawing consent. Social Worker did not return Children to Father but did submit a petition to remove children from Father which was approved after a preliminary hearing on January 14, 2016. The petition was ultimately dismissed. Father subsequently filed an action against Social Worker and Supervisor for violating his children’s constitutional rights.
Social Worker and Supervisor moved to dismiss Father’s action, raising qualified and absolute immunity claims. The district court granted summary judgment and dismissed the claims relating to removal of the children after the January 14, 2016 court proceeding, finding absolute immunity. The district court denied summary judgment on Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment claims relating to the removal prior to the January 14, 2016 hearing, finding a reasonable jury could conclude that the social worker violated the families’ constitutional rights by the continued removal of the children without parental consent. Social Worker and Supervisor timely filed an interlocutory appeal.
The Sixth Circuit first addresses its jurisdiction to hear the appeal, holding that they may address the interlocutory appeal as the social worker and supervisor did not challenge any factual determinations of the district court but merely raised a purely legal question: “whether a state officer should have known that a parent could impliedly withdraw prior explicit consent to have his children temporarily removed from his custody pending a protective services investigation.”
“Qualified immunity serves to limit government officials’ liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Social Worker and Supervisor argue that no clearly established law put them on notice that they may have committed constitutional violations in the removal of Children, and thus they are entitled to qualified immunity. The Sixth Circuit agrees holding that Social Worker is entitled to qualified immunity as Father initially gave valid consent to the removal of the children and the social worker could not have been on notice that Father’s implicit revocation of consent violated the family’s constitutional rights.
“[W]here state employees remove children from their parents’ care without a valid court order and without either parental consent or pre-removal process, the state workers violate either the Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment—or both. See Kovacic, 724 F.3d at 695–700 (violation of Fourth Amendment); Doe v. Staples, 706 F.2d 985, 988–90 (6th Cir. 1983) (violation of Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process); Vinson v. Campbell Cnty. Fiscal Ct., 820 F.2d 194, 200–01 (6th Cir. 1987) (violation of Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process). At the other end, though, where state workers receive parental consent to temporarily remove children from custody, the state employees do not violate any constitutional rights, even if they do not obtain a court order or follow any other process for the removal. See Smith v. Williams-Ash, 520 F.3d 596, 599–600 (6th Cir. 2008); see also Teets v. Cuyahoga County, 460 F. App’x 498, 503 (6th Cir. 2012).”
While this case falls “in the middle” the Sixth Circuit holds that the law does not clearly establish that Social Worker’s conduct violated the Constitution and extends that qualified immunity to Supervisor reversing the district court and remanding for entry of an order dismissing Father’s claims against Social worker and Supervisor.
Digested by Elizabeth M. Howell