Ninth Circuit Denies Qualified Immunity for Judicial Deception Resulting in Minors' Medical Exams

Steven D. Schwinn, University of Illinois Chicago School of Law

The Ninth Circuit denied qualified immunity to two social workers who knowingly and falsely represented to a juvenile court that they had made reasonable efforts to notify parents about medical examinations of their children. The false representations led to court-ordered exams without the knowledge or consent of the parents. The ruling means that the parents' civil-rights suit against the social workers can move forward.

The case, Benavidez v. County of San Diego, arose when social workers falsely told a juvenile court, as part of child removal proceedings, that they had made reasonable efforts to notify the children's parents when they sought a court order for medical examinations of the children. Based on the social workers' false statements, the court ordered medical exams of the children. The parents only learned of the exams after they occurred.

The parents sued, arguing that the social workers violated their due process rights by deceiving the juvenile court in procuring the orders for medical exams. The social workers argued that they enjoyed qualified immunity. The Ninth Circuit disagreed.

The court ruled that "Plaintiffs' claims sufficiently alleged a violation of their constitutional right to family association, which 'includes the right of parents to make important medical decisions for their children, and of children to have those decisions made by their parents rather than the state.'" More particularly, the court said that "[w]e have previously recognized a constitutional right under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to be free from judicial deception and fabrication of evidence in the context of civil child custody cases." The court ruled that the plaintiffs sufficiently pleaded facts to support a violation here.

The court went on to say that the right was well established at the time of the violation.

At the same time, the court rejected the plaintiffs' Monell claim for county liability. The court said that the plaintiffs failed to allege that county policy or the county's failure to train the social workers led to the violations. (County policy, in fact, required the social workers to obtain parental consent before the examination.)