Gensburg v. Miller
| Decision Date | 12 December 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. A063468,A063468 |
| Citation | 31 Cal.App.4th 512,37 Cal.Rptr.2d 97 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Matthew GENSBURG et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. Fred MILLER et al., Defendants and Respondents. |
Michael E. Adams, Rockhill, Schaiman & Carr, Redwood City, for plaintiffs and appellants.
Daniel E. Lungren, Atty. Gen., Robert L. Mukai, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Marvin Goldsmith, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., Tyler B. Pon, Supervising Deputy Atty. Gen., Bradley A. Solomon, Deputy Atty. Gen., Douglas M. Moore, Jr., Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold, San Francisco, for defendants and respondents.
In this federal civil rights action against employees of the State Department of Social Services (State DSS or Department), the County of San Mateo (County) and the County Department of Social Services (County DSS), arising out of the suspension of appellants' foster home license, the trial court sustained a demurrer without leave to amend on the ground that the defendants were absolutely immune from civil liability for their alleged misconduct.
We are in agreement with the trial court and affirm.
On appeal from a judgment of dismissal after sustaining a demurrer without leave to amend, we assume the truth of all well pleaded material facts, but not contentions, deductions or conclusions of law. It is error to sustain the demurrer if plaintiff has stated a cause of action under any legal theory, and it is an abuse of discretion to sustain a demurrer without leave to amend if there is a reasonable possibility that the defect can be cured by amendment. (Aubry v. Tri-City Hospital Dist. (1992) 2 Cal.4th 962, 966-967, 9 Cal.Rptr.2d 92, 831 P.2d 317.) Mindful of these settled rules, we summarize the allegations of the third amended complaint.
Plaintiffs, Matthew and Pamela Gensburg (the Gensburgs) are husband and wife who operate a foster home out of their residence in the County of San Mateo. Plaintiff Nancy Curry is the natural mother of two children who, at certain times, resided as foster children in the Gensburgs' home.
Defendants Stuart R. Oppenheim, Pat Crawford and Marjorie Knoop (the County defendants) are all employees of County DSS. Oppenheim is deputy program director at County DSS; Crawford heads the licensing unit maintained by the State DSS for supervision of licensed foster parents; Knoop was the official in the licensing unit responsible for overseeing the Gensburgs' license.
Beginning in 1988, the County defendants began a vendetta designed to drive the Gensburgs out of their foster care business. The motivation for the vendetta was the County defendants' distaste for the Gensburgs' practice of accepting foster children from divergent racial and ethnic backgrounds and also retaliation for criticisms which Matthew Gensburg had publicly aired against them.
The vendetta started when the County defendants stopped placing foster children with the Gensburgs in 1989, after which the Gensburgs began receiving placements from the San Francisco Department of Social Services.
In 1990, Matthew Gensburg was involved in an altercation at a construction site, "wholly unconnected" to the Gensburgs' foster care business. The County defendants wrote a report regarding the altercation and forwarded it to State DSS, urging revocation of the Gensburgs' foster care license. The report included "defamatory statements" to the effect that the Gensburgs were bigoted and violent toward their foster children. As a result, the State DSS filed an accusation seeking to revoke the Gensburgs' license.
From June to September 1991, the County defendants violated established departmental policies by conducting a "malicious exploratory investigation" into the Gensburgs' foster care activities. This included procuring and forwarding to State DSS negative statements which defendants knew to be "false, misleading and materially inaccurate."
As a result of the County defendants' actions, in September 1991 the Department amended the accusation to add 30 more charges and imposed a temporary license suspension on the Gensburgs which remained in effect until February 1992.
The case against the Gensburgs was the subject of an 11-day hearing before an administrative law judge, and resulted in a recommendation that all charges be dismissed. In January 1992, the State DSS revised the judge's decision to uphold several of the charges and to place the Gensburgs on probation. The State's decision was ultimately reversed in a writ of mandate action in superior court, which ordered reinstatement of the Gensburgs' license.
As a proximate result of the defendants' conduct the Gensburgs incurred legal fees and loss of income from their foster care business and injury to their reputations. Curry and her children as well as the Gensburgs' minor children suffered psychological trauma and humiliation.
The second cause of action is directed against Fred Miller, who is Deputy Director of the Community Care Licensing Division of State DSS and Steven A. Shaffer, Staff Attorney in the Department's Office of Chief Counsel.
After preparing the accusation against the Gensburgs in June 1991, Shaffer joined with the County defendants in their malicious, "improperly aggressive investigation." Specifically, in an "overzealous and unprofessional manner" he encouraged witnesses to make negative statements which he either knew or was substantially certain were false and misleading. Shaffer then presented these statements to Miller, who amended the accusation to add 30 false charges against the Gensburgs. Shaffer also encouraged third parties to file a harassment suit against the Gensburgs.
On September 17, 1991, the State defendants caused to be issued an administrative order pursuant to Health and Safety Code section 1550, subdivision (e), suspending the foster care license of the Gensburgs until after the completion of formal administrative proceedings. The suspension resulted in the removal of five foster children from the Gensburgs' home.
The actions of the State defendants violated the Gensburgs' constitutional rights, including their liberty and property interests in pursuing their occupation as licensed foster parents. Said defendants acted maliciously in that objectively reasonable public officials would have known that their actions violated the Gensburgs' constitutional rights and were unsupported by probable cause.
The third cause of action alleges a conspiracy between the County defendants and the State defendants to violate the Gensburgs' civil rights under 42 U.S.C. section 1983.
Government Code section 821.6 (section 821.6) provides that "A public employee is not liable for injury caused by his [or her] instituting or prosecuting any judicial or administrative proceeding within the scope of his [or her] employment, even if he [or she] acts maliciously and without probable cause."
In Jenkins v. County of Orange (1989) 212 Cal.App.3d 278, 260 Cal.Rptr. 645 (Jenkins ), the court found that this section confers absolute immunity on a social worker from all state-based causes of action arising out her actions in investigating child abuse allegations, initiating dependency proceedings and removing a child from his custodial parent. Likening the social worker's role to that of a prosecutor, the court held that the defendant's conduct fell within the ambit of the statute. (Id., at pp. 283-284, 260 Cal.Rptr. 645.)
There appears little doubt that the action of the State and County defendants here were protected by the immunity set forth in section 821.6. Although the conduct here concerned actions taken in the investigation and prosecution of license suspension and revocation proceedings against foster parents rather than dependency proceedings, both types of conduct fulfill the same compelling statutory purpose--the preservation of the welfare and safety of dependent minor children. (See Health & Saf.Code, § 1521.6, subd. (a).)
Thus, any state or common law causes of action are barred by section 821.6.
The complaint, however, is framed strictly as an action under section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act. (42 U.S.C. § 1983, [section 1983] ). 1 Because section 1983 was intended by Congress as a remedy to prevent unconstitutional acts by state and local officials, we must look to federal law to determine the scope of immunity of governmental officials from a section 1983 suit. (Alicia T. v. County of Los Angeles (1990) 222 Cal.App.3d 869, 878, 271 Cal.Rptr. 513; accord Elene H. v. County of Los Angeles (1990) 220 Cal.App.3d 1445, 1452, 269 Cal.Rptr. 783.)
In Imbler v. Pachtman (1976) 424 U.S. 409, 96 S.Ct. 984, 47 L.Ed.2d 128 (Imbler), the United States Supreme Court, following a tradition of common law precedent, held that prosecutors enjoy absolute immunity from section 1983 suits for their activities in initiating and presenting the state's case, as well as for conduct "intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process...." (Id., at pp. 427-430, 96 S.Ct. at 993-995.)
Subsequently in Burns v. Reed (1991) 500 U.S. 478, 492-493, 111 S.Ct. 1934, 1942-1943, 114 L.Ed.2d 547 (Burns ) the high Court was confronted with a section 1983 suit alleging that a prosecutor had procured false testimony at a probable cause hearing to obtain a search warrant and had also given erroneous legal advice to the police. The high court held that the prosecutor was absolutely immune from liability for the former activity but enjoyed only qualified immunity 2 for the latter, since the giving of advice to the police was not closely connected to the judicial phase of the criminal process.
The contours of prosecutorial immunity were more finely delineated in Buckley v. Fitzsimmons, (1993) 509 U.S....
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