Humphries v. County of Los Angeles

• Decision Date: 05 November 2008
• Docket Number: No. 05-56467.,05-56467.
• Citation: 554 F.3d 1170
• Parties: Craig Arthur HUMPHRIES; Wendy Dawn Aborn Humphries, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES; Leroy Baca, individually and in his official capacity as Los Angeles County Sheriff; Michael L. Wilson, individually and in his official capacity as a Detective and/or Deputy of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department; Charles T. Ansberry, individually and in his official capacity as a Detective of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department; Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, in his official capacity as Attorney General of the State of California, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

554 F.3d 1170

Craig Arthur HUMPHRIES; Wendy Dawn Aborn Humphries, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES; Leroy Baca, individually and in his official capacity as Los Angeles County Sheriff; Michael L. Wilson, individually and in his official capacity as a Detective and/or Deputy of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department; Charles T. Ansberry, individually and in his official capacity as a Detective of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department; Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, in his official capacity as Attorney General of the State of California, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 05-56467.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted October 19, 2007.

Filed November 5, 2008.

Amended January 15, 2009.

Second Amendment January 30, 2009.

Esther G. Boynton (argued), Beverly Hills, CA, for the plaintiffs-appellants.

Mark D. Rutter, Carpenter, Rothans & Dumont, Los Angeles, CA; Martin Stein, Alison Turner, Lillie Hsu (argued), Greines, Martin, Stein & Richland LLP, Los Angeles, CA, for the defendants-appellees.

Edmund G. Brown Jr., Attorney General of the State of California, David S. Chaney, Chief Assistant Attorney General, James T. Schiavenza, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Marsha S. Miller, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Paul C. Epstein (argued), Deputy Attorney General, State of California Department of Justice, Office of the Attorney General, Los Angeles, CA, for the defendant-appellee.

Carolyn A. Kubitschek, Lansner & Kubitschek, New York, NY, for the amicus National Coalition for Child Protection Reform.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California; James V. Selna, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-03-00697-JVS.

Before: JAY S. BYBEE and MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judges, and RICHARD MILLS,^* District Judge.

ORDER

The opinion, filed November 5, 2008, , is amended as follows:

1. At , replace "susbstantiated" with "substantiated."

2. At , replace "If the parties provide" with "If a party provides."

3. At , replace "County's CACI-related policies" with "County's and State's CACI-related policies."

4. At , replace "district court" with "district attorney"; also replace "affect" with "effect."

5. At replace "very type of liberty interest" with "very type of interference with a liberty interest."

6. At , delete the following: "By failing to do so, LASD's custom and policy violated the Humphries' constitutional rights. Therefore, we deny the County summary judgment on this issue." Add the following:

By failing to do so, it is possible that the LASD adopted a custom and policy that violated the Humphries' constitutional rights. However, because this issue is not clear based on the record before us on appeal—and because the issue was not briefed by the parties—we remand to the district court to determine whether or not the County is entitled to qualified immunity.

7. At , replace "judgment to the County" with "judgment to the State and the County"

In addition, the panel's order, filed November 5, 2008, addressing the parties' costs is amended to delete "and fees."

With these amendments, the panel has voted to otherwise deny appellee County of Los Angeles' petition for rehearing. Judge Bybee and Judge Smith have voted to deny the petition for rehearing en banc, and Judge Mills recommended denying the petition for rehearing en banc. The full court has been advised of the petition for rehearing en banc and no judge has requested a vote on whether to rehear the matter en banc. Fed. R.App. P. 35. Appellee County of Los Angeles's Petition for Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc is DENIED.

The panel has voted to deny appellee Bill Lockyer's petition for rehearing. Judge Bybee and Judge Smith have voted to deny the petition for rehearing en banc, and Judge Mills recommended denying the petition for rehearing en banc. The full court has been advised of the petition for rehearing en banc and no judge has requested a vote on whether to rehear the matter en banc. Fed. R.App. P. 35. Appellee Bill Lockyer's Petition for Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc is DENIED.

With these amendments, the panel has voted to grant appellants' motion for clarification. Appellant's Motion for Clarification is GRANTED.

With these amendments, the panel has also voted to grant in part appellant's petition for rehearing or reconsideration of the November 5, 2008 order. Appellant's Petition for Rehearing or Reconsideration of the November 5, 2008 Order is GRANTED IN PART.

No further petitions for rehearing or rehearing en banc will be accepted.

ORDER

The opinion, originally filed November 5, 2008, and amended January 15, 2009, , is amended as follows:

At , delete "we remand to the district court to determine whether or not the County is entitled to qualified immunity." Add the following: "we remand to the district court to determine the County's liability under Monell."

OPINION

BYBEE, Circuit Judge:

Appellants Craig and Wendy Humphries are living every parent's nightmare. Accused of abuse by a rebellious child, they were arrested, and had their other children taken away from them. When a doctor confirmed that the abuse charges could not be true, the state dismissed the criminal case against them. The Humphries then petitioned the criminal court, which found them "factually innocent" of the charges for which they had been arrested, and ordered the arrest records sealed and destroyed. Similarly, the juvenile court dismissed all counts of the dependency petition as "not true."

Notwithstanding the findings of two California courts that the Humphries were "factually innocent" and the charges "not true," the Humphries were identified as "substantiated" child abusers and placed on California's Child Abuse Central Index ("the CACI"), a database of known or suspected child abusers. As the Humphries quickly learned, California offers no procedure to remove their listing on the database as suspected child abusers, and thus no opportunity to clear their names. More importantly, California makes the CACI database available to a broad array of government agencies, employers, and law enforcement entities and even requires some public and private groups to consult the database before making hiring, licensing, and custody decisions.

This case presents the question of whether California's maintenance of the CACI violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because identified individuals are not given a fair opportunity to challenge the allegations against them. We hold that it does.

I. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

A. The Statutory Scheme

1. The Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act

California maintains a database of "reports of suspected child abuse and severe neglect," known as the Child Abuse Central Index or CACI. CAL. PENAL CODE § 11170(a)(2). California has collected such information since 1965, see 1965 Cal. Stat. 1171, and since 1988, the maintenance of the CACI has been governed by the Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act ("CANRA"), CAL. PENAL CODE §§ 11164-11174.

a. Inclusion in the CACI

There are many different ways a person can find themself listed in the CACI. CANRA mandates that various statutorily enumerated individuals report instances of known or suspected child abuse and neglect either to a law enforcement agency or to a child welfare agency. Id. § 11165.9. These agencies, in turn, are required to conduct "an active investigation," id. § 11169(a), which involves investigating the allegation and determining whether the incident is "substantiated, inconclusive, or unfounded," CAL. CODE REGS. tit. 11, § 901(a) (2008).

In an attempt by the legislature to demonstrate how many negatives it could place in a single provision, CANRA then provides that the agency shall send the California Department of Justice ("CA DOJ") a written report "of every case it investigates of known or suspected child abuse or severe neglect which is determined not to be unfounded," but that the "agency shall not forward a report to the [CA DOJ] unless it has conducted an active investigation and determined that the report is not unfounded." CAL. PENAL CODE § 11169(a). CANRA defines a report as "unfounded" if it is "determined by the investigator who conducted the investigation[1] to be false, [2] to be inherently improbable, [3] to involve an accidental injury, or [4] not to constitute child abuse or neglect." Id. § 11165.12(a). There is no further definition of what it means for a report to be "false" or "inherently improbable," and no discussion of the standard of proof by which that determination is to be made. Presumably, a report is "not unfounded" if the investigator determines that it meets none of these four criteria.

CANRA defines two other categories of reports, those that are "substantiated" and those that are "inconclusive." A "substantiated report" means that "the investigator who conducted the investigation" determined that the report "constitute[d] child abuse or neglect . . . based upon evidence that makes it more likely than not that child abuse or neglect occurred." Id. § 11165.12(b). An "inconclusive report" means that "the investigator who conducted the investigation" found the report "not to be unfounded, but the findings are inconclusive and there is insufficient evidence to determine whether child abuse or neglect . . . occurred." Id. § 11165.12(c). Both inconclusive and substantiated reports are submitted to the CA DOJ for inclusion in the CACI. See id. §§ 11169(a), (c), 11170(a)(3).

To summarize, we understand section 11169(a), when read in conjunction with section 11165.12, to require agencies to investigate all reports of child abuse. Each reported incident of child abuse must then be categorized as (1) "substantiated," meaning it is more likely than not that child abuse or neglect occurred; (2) "inconclusive," meaning there is insufficient evidence to determine whether child abuse and/or neglect occurred; or (3) ...