Hernandez v. Texas Dept. of Prot. and Reg. Serv.

• Decision Date: 25 August 2004
• Docket Number: No. 02-11362.,02-11362.
• Citation: 380 F.3d 872
• Parties: Nicolas HERNANDEZ, on behalf of Eric HERNANDEZ, Individually; Juana Olalde, on behalf of Eric Hernandez, Individually, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PROTECTIVE AND REGULATORY SERVICES; et al., Defendants, Lois Lilly; Diane Purdin, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 872

380 F.3d 872

Nicolas HERNANDEZ, on behalf of Eric HERNANDEZ, Individually; Juana Olalde, on behalf of Eric Hernandez, Individually, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PROTECTIVE AND REGULATORY SERVICES; et al., Defendants Lois Lilly; Diane Purdin, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 02-11362.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

August 25, 2004.

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Paul Gary Belew (argued), Belew & Belew, Fort Worth, TX, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

Peter B. Plotts, III, Asst. Atty. Gen. (argued), Austin, TX, for Defendants-Appellants.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Before DAVIS, WIENER, and STEWART, Circuit Judges.

CARL E. STEWART, Circuit Judge:

This case involves a foster care placement that tragically ended in the death of a minor, Eric Hernandez ("Eric"), while he was in the custody of a state licensed foster family. The natural parents, Nicholas Hernandez and Juana Olalde (collectively, "the natural parents"), brought this action against former and current employees of the Child Protective Services ("CPS" or "the agency"), an arm of the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services ("TDPRS"), alleging violations of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and asserting state law negligence claims in connection with the tragic death of young Eric. Prior to Eric's death, State CPS officials Lois Lilly ("Lilly") and Diane Purdin ("Purdin") (collectively, "the social workers") removed the infant child, pending an investigation into suspected child abuse, from the guardianship of his natural parents. On appeal, Lilly and Purdin contend that the district court erred in its denial of their motion for summary judgment on the grounds of qualified and official immunity. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that Lilly and Purdin were entitled to qualified and official immunity, and therefore the district court's denial of the motion to dismiss the claims against Lilly and Purdin is reversed.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

The events leading to the present case, though brief in form, are tragic in fact. On February 27, 1999, Juana Olalde ("Olalde") took her seven-week-old son Eric to the Childrens' Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, where he was diagnosed with a spiral fracture of the right femur. Olalde claimed that she tripped and fell while carrying young Eric in her arms. Because Olalde's explanation was not consistent with Eric's injury, medical personnel became suspicious of the circumstances surrounding the accident. Pending an investigation into the accident, CPS workers removed Eric from the custody of his natural parents, without consent or a court order, and the State assumed sole supervision of Eric.

CPS officials placed Eric in the home of the Clauds, a foster family with a prior history of negative reports concerning child care. The Clauds' home was frequently described by CPS case workers as "junky" and reportedly "smelled of cigarette smoke." Anonymous callers also complained that the Clauds sent the foster children to daycare "in dirty diapers" with too few and unsterilized bottles. Moreover, in September of 1998, Mrs. Claud brought a child to CPS with a swollen jaw that was beginning to bruise. In her response to the incident, Mrs. Claud explained that the child "just woke up with it this morning." CPS case worker Patty Zukas brought the swollen jaw incident to the attention of Purdin and another case worker. Additionally, in October of 1998, Purdin learned that Mrs. Claud placed a device on a foster child's bedroom doorknob, which effectively locked the child in its room, in violation of licensing standards. Following an investigation of the incident, Mrs. Claud agreed to no longer use the device in her foster home.

On January 19, 1999, a "priority1 — Physical Abuse" referral was made to the Clauds' home after a case worker observed bruises on each of two children in the care of the Clauds. One child had a brownish bruise on her right thigh and the other child had a greenish bruise on the right side of her buttocks. Mrs. Claud expressed bewilderment as to the source of the bruises, but suggested that the injuries may have resulted from the children "jumping on the bed." CPS case worker Lilly investigated the allegations and ruled out abuse. During the home visit, Mrs. Claud suggested that the bruises probably stemmed from the children "climb[ing] and run[ning] into things."

An anonymous caller reported, on January 28, 1999, that Mrs. Claud would lock the children in a closet while she worked on crafts. The caller also suggested that the foster parents were told of upcoming visits and thus had a chance to spruce up the home to impress CPS workers. The next day, Lilly returned to the Claud home and determined that it was unlikely that the children "could be locked in a closet without destroying the closet." Lilly again ruled out abuse.

Despite these reports, on February 27, 1999, CPS officials placed Eric in the custody of the Clauds. Days later, on March 7, 1999, Mrs. Claud placed Eric on his stomach to sleep. When the Clauds returned several hours later, they discovered that Eric was lying face down in the pillow. The Clauds rushed Eric to the Charleton Methodist Hospital in the early hours of March 8, 1999, where Eric was pronounced dead from positional asphyxia.

The natural parents filed the present civil action on October 7, 1999, against the Clauds and TDPRS. On May 15, 2001, the natural parents amended their complaint to also include the TDPRS Regional and State Directors and the TDPRS State Social Workers. The natural parents' complaint presented state law negligence claims and five theories of liability under Section 1983 for the following: deliberate indifference, lack of professional judgment, unconstitutional conditions of confinement, failure to adequately train the Clauds and placement workers, and state-created danger.

On September 7, 2001, several state defendants were dismissed by the district court pursuant to FED.R.CIV.P. 12(b)(6). The natural parents' reached a settlement with the Clauds on February 19, 2002. The natural parents' action against the remaining defendants, Regional Director Wayne Hairgrove and State social workers Amy Millender, Lilly, and Purdin, alleged that those defendants were in violation of Section 1983 for being deliberately indifferent to Eric's rights and well-being; failure to exercise professional judgment when making the decision to place Eric in the Clauds' foster home; and failure to adequately train the Clauds as foster parents. The natural parents also alleged state law negligence claims against the remaining defendants.

The remaining defendants moved for summary judgment on July 31, 2002, based on both qualified immunity for the natural parents' federal claims and official immunity as to their state law claims. On November 22, 2002, the district court granted summary judgment as to Hairgrove and Millender, and denied summary judgment as to Lilly and Purdin, finding a triable issue of fact regarding the alleged deliberate indifference. Specifically, the district court found summary judgment improper with respect to Lilly and Purdin, based on its determination that a genuine issue of material fact existed as to whether these defendants perceived a substantial risk of harm to any child the agency placed in the Claud home. The district court therefore denied qualified immunity for the federal law claims. In its summary judgment ruling, the district court also denied Lilly and Purdin official immunity for the state law claims, finding that the social workers' good faith was sufficiently controverted by the natural parents' evidence of deliberate indifference. This interlocutory appeal followed.

DISCUSSION

I. Appellate Jurisdiction

Prior to reaching the merits, we must first verify, sua sponte, that our jurisdiction over this appeal is proper. Mowbray v. Cameron County, 274 F.3d 269, 279 (5th Cir.2001). This court has jurisdiction over "all final decisions of the district courts," except those immediately appealable to the Supreme Court. 28 U.S.C. § 1291 (2000). Under the collateral order doctrine, a district court's order denying summary judgment predicated upon qualified immunity, although interlocutory in nature, is an immediately appealable "final decision" to the extent that the denial of summary judgment turns on an issue of law. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985); see also Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299, 307, 116 S.Ct. 834, 133 L.Ed.2d 773 (1996) ("Mitchell clearly establishes that an order rejecting the defense of qualified immunity at either the dismissal stage or the summary judgment stage is a `final' judgment subject to immediate appeal").

Our jurisdiction over an appeal from the denial of qualified immunity depends on the reasons for the denial; that is, we have no jurisdiction if the denial was based on the existence of disputed issues of fact. Kinney v. Weaver, 367 F.3d 337, 347 (5th Cir.2004) (en banc) ("[I]n an interlocutory appeal we cannot challenge the district court's assessments regarding the sufficiency of the evidence — that is, the question whether there is enough evidence in the record for a jury to conclude that certain facts are true."). We do, however, have jurisdiction to decide whether the district court erred in concluding as a matter of law that officials are not entitled to qualified immunity on a given set of facts. Id. Stated differently, our jurisdiction is proper only to the extent that the appeal concerns the purely legal question whether the defendants are entitled to qualified immunity on the facts that the district court found sufficiently supported in the summary judgment record. Id. See also Glenn v. City of Tyler, 242 F.3d 307, 312 (5th Cir.2001) (stating that in determining a question of law "the materiality of the...