Justia Family Law Opinion Summaries

Articles Posted in US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
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In November 1999, the SSA filed a dependency petition on behalf of plaintiff and her sister against their parents. The juvenile dependency court assumed jurisdiction over the children, but permitted them to remain in their mother's custody and to have supervised visitation with their father. In February 2000, the dependency court ordered that the children be removed from mother's custody. In 2001, mother filed an action in California superior court alleging that Orange County social workers violated her constitutional right to familial association. The jury returned verdicts in favor of mother against all defendants except one. Plaintiff filed this 2013 federal action alleging that defendants violated her Fourteenth Amendment right to familial association and her Fourth Amendment right against wrongful seizure.The Ninth Circuit held that where constitutional familial rights are at stake, there are identical companionship rights between a parent and child that could allow a plaintiff to invoke issue preclusion to bar relitigation of issues previously decided. However, in this case, plaintiff cannot assert issue preclusion because mother litigated more than just the overlapping companionship rights in her state court case and the panel cannot determine the basis for the jury's verdict. Therefore, plaintiff failed to establish that the issues litigated in the prior state proceeding were identical to the issues raised in her federal case. View "Hardwick v. County of Orange" on Justia Law

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The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for defendants in an action brought by plaintiff under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that the County and DCFS violated plaintiff's due process and privacy rights by maintaining unfounded child abuse allegations against plaintiff in California's Child Welfare Services Case Management System (CWS/CMS) without providing him notice or a hearing to challenge them.The panel held that the County has a strong interest in maintaining all reports of suspected child abuse in CWS/CMS—even those that result in "unfounded" dispositions—because doing so helps its child welfare and law enforcement agencies protect children from abuse and neglect. In this case, plaintiff failed to raise a triable issue of material fact that the records of his "unfounded" allegations in CWS/CMS caused him reputational harm, or that they are used by the County to alter or extinguish his rights to employment, child placement, or child visitation. Therefore, plaintiff failed to show that his inclusion in CWS/CMS implicates his liberty interests so as to require procedural due process. Furthermore, plaintiff has not shown that the County publicly disseminates or misuses his information in a manner that would violate his constitutional right to privacy. View "Endy v. County of Los Angeles" on Justia Law

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The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of a petition for the return of a child to Mexico pursuant to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. Petitioner is the child's paternal half-sister and respondent is the child's maternal grandmother, who has been raising the child in Las Vegas, Nevada since 2017.In this case, the district court clearly erred in its factual finding regarding the date of removal, which was August 25, 2017. Furthermore, respondent's removal of the child was wrongful because it breached the Mexican court's rights of custody. Because the petition was filed more than one year after the date of wrongful removal, the district court had discretion to decline to order the return of the child. Because petitioner does not appeal the district court's findings that the child is now settled in Las Vegas, nor does petitioner argue that the district court abused its discretion in declining to order return, the panel affirmed the district court's discretionary decision not to order the return of the child pending custody proceedings. View "Flores Castro v. Hernandez Renteria" on Justia Law

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After federal agencies issued two interim final rules (IFRs) exempting employers with religious and moral objections from the Affordable Care Act requirement that group health plans cover contraceptive care without cost sharing, states filed suit to enjoin the enforcement of the IFRs. The Ninth Circuit affirmed that venue was proper in the Northern District of California; affirmed that plaintiff states have standing to sue based on procedural injury where the states have shown with reasonable probability that the IFRs will first lead to women losing employer-sponsored contraceptive coverage, which will then result in economic harm to the states; affirmed the preliminary injunction insofar as it barred enforcement of the IFRs in the plaintiff states; but vacated the portion of the injunction barring enforcement in other states because the scope of the injunction was overbroad. View "California v. Azar" on Justia Law

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After county social workers removed four children under the age of six from their family home under a suspicion of child abuse, took them to a temporary shelter, and subjected them to invasive medical examinations, without their parents' knowledge or consent and without a court order authorizing the examinations, the family filed suit against the county for violations of the parents' Fourteenth Amendment rights and the children's Fourth Amendment rights.The Ninth Circuit held that the county violates parents' Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process rights when it performs the Polinsky Children's Center medical examinations without notifying the parents about the examinations and without obtaining either the parents' consent or judicial authorization. The panel assumed, without deciding, that the special needs doctrine applied to the Polinksy medical examinations, but held that the searches were unconstitutional under the special needs balancing test if performed without the necessary notice and consent. In this case, the county violated the children's Fourth Amendment rights by failing to obtain a warrant or to provide these constitutional safeguards before subjecting the children to these invasive medical examinations. View "Mann v. County of San Diego" on Justia Law

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Plaintiff and her minor child filed suit against officers and employees of the Child Protective Services (CPS) division of the Arizona Department of Economic Security (ADES), alleging violations of plaintiff's constitutuional rights to familial association. In this case, CPS removed the child from plaintiff's custody following the child's hospitalization for depression and suicidal ideation. The panel held that the allegations in the complaint were sufficient to state a claim to relief that was plausible on its face. In this case, a reasonable official in defendant's position would know that the available information did not establish reasonable cause to believe that the child was in imminent danger of attempting to commit suicide, or that it was necessary to separate her from her mother, transfer her to another hospital and continue to detain her after medical professionals at the hospital concluded she was a low suicide risk. Therefore, the district court erred in dismissing the familial association claim against defendants Koile and Pender on the basis of qualified immunity. However, the district court did not err in granting the motion to dismiss plaintiff's claim that defendants violated plaintiff and her child's due process right to be free from deliberately false statements during juvenile court proceedings. Finally, the district court did not err in dismissing claims against the remaining defendants. View "Keates v. Koile" on Justia Law

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Plaintiffs filed suit alleging that social workers violated their constitutional rights to family unity and companionship, and as well as their small children's rights, by removing the children from home without a warrant or court order. Plaintiffs were the subject of a criminal investigation after they tried to print nude photos of their three children. Determining that the appeal was timely, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's order denying plaintiffs' motion to seal the summary judgment order where the district court protected the privacy of the children, Arizona law prohibits the Department of Economic Security from releasing the files, the district court order employed clinical, anatomically correct language to briefly describe the nudity depicted in the photographs, plaintiffs did not file their complaint under seal, and plaintiffs gave public interviews where they described the photos at issue. The panel reversed the district court's order granting summary judgment in favor of the social workers based on qualified immunity, holding that the social workers did not have reasonable cause to believe the children were at risk of serious bodily harm or molestation when they removed the children from their home without judicial authorization. The panel remanded for further proceedings. View "Demaree v. Pederson" on Justia Law

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Plaintiff filed suit challenging the constitutionality of Arizona's revocation-on-divorce (ROD) statute after she remained the beneficiary of her ex-husband's IRA account when he died. The Ninth Circuit held that the district court correctly determined that an Arizona state court would disregard the choice-of-law provision in the Plan and instead apply Arizona's ROD statute; the application of the ROD statute was not preempted by federal statutes and regulations governing IRAs; the district courts erred when they denied plaintiff standing; and the California district court did not abuse its discretion in transferring the case to Arizona under 28 U.S.C. 1406(a) on the grounds that it lacked personal jurisdiction over the Estate. Although it disagreed with the district court's holding that plaintiff lacked standing, the panel affirmed the dismissal of the constitutional challenge to the application of Arizona's ROD statute in the allocation of the proceeds of the ex-husband's IRA. View "Lazar v. Kroncke" on Justia Law