Jonathan R. v. Justice

• Docket Number: Civil Action 3:19-cv-00710
• Decision Date: 13 January 2023
• Parties: JONATHAN R., et al., Plaintiffs, v. JIM JUSTICE, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of West Virginia

JONATHAN R., et al., Plaintiffs,
v.
JIM JUSTICE, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 3:19-cv-00710

United States District Court, S.D. West Virginia, Huntington Division

January 13, 2023

ORDER

Thomas E. Johnston Chief Judge

Pending before the Court is Defendants Jim Justice, Bill Crouch, Jeremiah Samples, Linda Watts, and the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources' (collectively “Defendants”) Motion to Dismiss Plaintiffs' Complaint. (ECF No. 17.) For the reasons more fully explained below, the Motion is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.

I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs are children in the West Virginia foster care system. (ECF No. 1 at 2, ¶ 2.) They allege this system, as run by Defendants, is structurally inept, in violation of their constitutional and statutory rights. (Id. at 6, ¶ 10.) Seeking system-wide reform, Plaintiffs brought this putative class action on behalf of all children who are, or will be, placed in West Virginia foster care. (See id.)

Plaintiffs' Complaint describes a legion of shortcomings in the foster care system. For instance, Plaintiffs allege that the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

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(“DHHR”) “lacks a sufficient number of foster care placements.” (Id. at 4, ¶ 9(a).) This, in turn, leads to DHHR “segregate[ing] children in institutions,” placing some in temporary shelters for indefinite stints of time, leaving others in “known abusive or neglectful homes,” or placing them in poorly vetted and overcrowded foster homes. (Id. at 4, ¶ 9(b).) Among this slate of improper placements, Plaintiffs allege DHHR has a go-to: institutions. (Id. at 4, ¶ 9(c).) Nearly three-quarters of the children in DHHR custody between the ages of 12 and 17 are institutionalized. (Id. at 3, ¶7.) Plaintiffs allege these institutions run “rampant [with] sexual, physical, and emotional abuse,” (Id. at 69, ¶ 281), and are more akin to “youth corrections facilit[ies]” than foster placements. (See e.g., id. at 33, ¶ 127.) Worse yet, Plaintiffs allege many of these institutions are outside West Virginia, which all but isolates foster children from their families and communities. (Id. at 69, ¶ 278.) Even when DHHR keeps foster children in-state, they are routinely separated from their siblings, and DHHR fails to arrange any visitation or communication between them. (Id. at 21-22, ¶ 71.) Plaintiffs further allege that all these placements, institutions and foster homes alike, are unstable, and that DHHR oftentimes shuttles them from one placement to another rather than securing them a permanent home. (Id. at 59-62, ¶¶ 244-55.)

Staff shortages also plague the foster care system. DHHR, according to Plaintiffs, “fails to employ and retain a sufficient number of appropriately trained caseworkers.” (Id. at 5, ¶ 9(f)). This leaves caseworkers swamped with “unmanageable caseloads,” sometimes “two or three times . . . the recommended standard.” (Id. at 71, ¶ 288.) DHHR unsurprisingly has an “alarmingly high caseworker turnover” rate. (Id. at 72, ¶ 292.) Unfortunately, DHHR's hiring practices only make matters worse: it routinely fills vacancies with unqualified applicants that have no training or education in social work. (Id. at 72, ¶ 293.) These shortcomings, Plaintiffs allege, have

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resulted in DHHR employing caseworkers that are “poorly trained [and] ill-equipped to help West Virginian families.” (Id. at 70, ¶ 283.)

Unqualified, overworked caseworkers lead to other deficiencies in West Virginia's foster care system. High caseloads prevent caseworkers from “timely assess[ing] [the needs of] children entering the foster care system.” (Id. at 75, ¶ 308.) Without timely assessments, DHHR cannot properly develop a foster child's individualized case plan. (Id.) Caseworkers are often unable to engage in meaningful visits with foster children, which further impedes case plan development. (Id. at 76, ¶ 313.) Unsurprisingly, individualized case plans are sometimes never developed. (Id.) DHHR then adds insult to injury by “fail[ing] to engage in necessary permanency planning for [foster] children.” (Id. at 79, ¶ 328.) These failures, Plaintiffs allege, force foster children to “languish in the foster care system for years.” (Id.)

Similar shortcomings permeate the foster care system, further exacerbating an already difficult situation. For example, a considerable number of foster children-Plaintiffs included- have mental health disabilities, ranging from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (“ADHD”) to post-traumatic stress disorder (“PTSD”). (Id. at 78, ¶ 321.) Yet DHHR has failed to create sufficient community or home-based mental health services to treat foster children; institutionalization is the only option. (Id. at 78-79, ¶¶ 323-24.) DHHR does not provide certain foster parents with much-needed services, such as financial assistance and training for how to raise foster children with disabilities. (Id. at 62-67, ¶¶ 256-74.) When it comes time for a foster child to age out of the system, DHHR all but abandons them-caseworkers “sometimes [wait until] as late as weeks before a teen's 18th birthday” to develop any sort of transitional plan for adulthood.

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(Id. at 83, ¶ 342.) Plaintiffs allege these last-minute efforts are futile, and foster children are inevitably thrust “into either unstable situations or directly into homelessness.” (Id. at 82, ¶ 340.)

Plaintiffs filed suit in this Court on September 30, 2019. (ECF No. 1.) The Complaint proposes one General Class, consisting of all children who are will be in West Virginia foster care, and three subclasses. (Id. at 10-11, ¶ 30.) The proposed Kinship Subclass consists of children who are, will be, or have been placed in kinship placements.^[1](Id. at 10-11, ¶ 30(a)(1).) The proposed ADA Subclass consists of children who have or will have physical, intellectual, cognitive, or mental health disabilities. (Id. at 11, ¶ 30(a)(ii).) The proposed Aging Out Subclass consists of children who are or will be 14 years old and older, who are eligible to receive age-appropriate transition planning but have not been provided the necessary case management and services. (Id. at 11, ¶ 30(a)(iii).)

The Complaint includes five causes of action. First, the General class and each subclass allege violations of their substantive due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. (Id. at 90-93, ¶¶ 368-74.) Second, each class asserts violations of their right to familial association under the First, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. (Id. at 93-94, ¶¶ 375-80.) Third, all classes allege violations of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (“AACWA”). (Id. at 94-96, ¶¶ 381-83.) Fourth, the ADA subclass alleges violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”). (Id. at 96-98, ¶¶ 384-94.) Fifth, the ADA subclass asserts a claim for violations of the Rehabilitation Act. (Id. at 98-99, ¶¶ 395-402.)

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Plaintiffs sued Defendants, Governor Jim Justice, then-Cabinet Secretary of the DHHR Bill Crouch, Deputy Secretary of the DHHR Jeremiah Samples, Commissioner of the Bureau for Children and Families Linda Watts, in their official capacity, as well as the DHHR. (Id. at 8-9, ¶ 21-25.) Plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief against Defendants for the alleged deficiencies in the foster care system they oversee. (Id. at 99-104, ¶ 403-08.) Boiled down, Plaintiffs seek three things. First, a declaration that these systematic deficiencies are unlawful. (Id. at 99-100, ¶ 404.) Second, injunctive relief that would require Defendants to overhaul the West Virginia foster care system. (Id. at 100-03, ¶ 405.) Third, a court-appointed Monitor to oversee Defendants' compliance with the injunction. (Id. at 104, ¶ 406.)

Defendants moved to dismiss the Complaint for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).^[2](ECF No. 17.) The matter has since been fully briefed and is now ripe for adjudication. (ECF Nos. 18, 29, 35, & 52.)

II. LEGAL STANDARD

A motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted tests the legal sufficiency of a civil complaint. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). A plaintiff must allege sufficient facts, which, if proven, would entitle him to relief under a cognizable legal claim. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 554-55 (2007). A case should be dismissed if, viewing the well-pleaded factual allegations in the complaint as true and in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the complaint does not contain “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.”

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Id. at 570. In applying this standard, a court must utilize a two-pronged approach. First, it must separate the legal conclusions in the complaint from the factual allegations. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). Second, assuming the truth of only the factual allegations, the court must determine whether the plaintiff's complaint permits a reasonable inference that “the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. Well-pleaded factual allegations are required; labels, conclusions, and a “formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555; see also King v. Rubenstein, 825 F.3d 206, 214 (4th Cir. 2016) (“Bare legal conclusions ‘are not entitled to the assumption of truth' and are insufficient to state a claim.” (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679)). A plaintiff's “[f]actual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level,” thereby “nudg[ing] [the] claims across the line from conceivable to plausible.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 570.

III. DISCUSSION

As stated above, Plaintiffs allege violations of their substantive due process rights, right to familial association, AACWA, ADA, and Rehabilitation Act. Defendants urge the Court to dismiss each for failure to state a claim. Against this backdrop, the Court turns to the task at hand.

A. Count I - Substantive Due Process

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