Meyers v. Contra Costa County Dept. of Social Services

• Decision Date: 16 March 1987
• Docket Number: No. 85-2127,85-2127
• Citation: 812 F.2d 1154
• Parties: David Glen MEYERS, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CONTRA COSTA COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES, et al., Defendants- Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 1154

812 F.2d 1154

55 USLW 2527

David Glen MEYERS, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CONTRA COSTA COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES, et al Defendants- Appellees.

No. 85-2127.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted March 11, 1986.

Decided March 16, 1987.

Vaughn E. Spunaugle, Richmond, Cal., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Jeffrey G. Nevin, Law Offices of Jerrold M. Ladar, San Francisco, Cal., and Thomas A. Watrous, Martinez, Cal., for defendants-appellees.

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

Before SCHROEDER, CANBY and BOOCHEVER, Circuit Judges.

SCHROEDER, Circuit Judge:

In this appeal we must decide whether a social service worker performing duties related to the filing of child custody and abuse proceedings has absolute prosecutorial immunity. We must also decide whether principles of quasi-judicial immunity apply to court employees participating under court directives in the resolution of family disputes.

The plaintiffs are David Meyers, his children and his parents. They brought this civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 against David's former wife Amy, and numerous individual and governmental defendants. They claimed that the defendants conspired, under color of state law and without due process of law, to prevent the adult plaintiffs from associating with the minor plaintiffs in deprivation of a liberty interest. The district court dismissed as to all defendants. The plaintiffs appeal only the dismissals as to appellees Haaland, a social worker, Allison and Crossley, employees of the Family Conciliation Court, and the Contra Costa County Department of Social Services (DSS). We hold, first, that Haaland was entitled to absolute prosecutorial immunity for all of his actions except those which preceded the institution of judicial proceedings and as to those actions, qualified immunity applies; second, that Allison and Crossley were entitled to quasi-judicial immunity for their actions; and, third that the plaintiffs never demonstrated that the acts complained of were pursuant to a policy or practice of the DSS. We affirm the district court in all respects.

Haaland

Haaland was a social casework specialist employed by the DSS in its Children's Protective Services Unit. Among his numerous responsibilities were the initiation and pursuit of dependency petitions in cases of suspected child neglect and abuse. His alleged conduct about which plaintiffs complain in this appeal was directly related to those functions.

Plaintiffs claim that, beginning on October 9, 1981, Haaland conspired with Amy Meyers to deprive David Meyers of custody of their children. According to the complaint, after being told by Amy that David had molested their son Paul, Haaland embarked on a course of conduct designed to separate Paul from his family by supervising an investigation and filing verified dependency petitions with the juvenile court of the Contra Costa County Superior Court requesting that the minor children be declared dependents of the juvenile court and removed from the custody of their father.

In this appeal plaintiffs place particular emphasis on the allegation that on October 23, 1981, Haaland ordered David to stay away from his home until after a judicial hearing could take place on October 26, although Haaland knew that the police department had terminated its investigation for lack of evidence. At the October 26 hearing, Haaland stated that he would arrange for supervised visitation between David and his children. According to the complaint, Haaland permitted David only one opportunity to visit with his children between the date the petition was filed, October 26, and the date it was dismissed pursuant to Haaland's recommendation, November 17.

The complaint also states that in a January 19, 1982 custody hearing, Haaland, in furtherance of his conspiracy with Amy to deprive David of custody, testified to his conclusion that David had molested Paul. Haaland's role appears to have ceased at this point. David was eventually reunited with his children when a superior court awarded him custody on January 23, 1984.

All of Haaland's challenged actions except for the January 1982 testimony took place within a short period of time--between October 9, 1981, and November 17, 1981. All revolve around Haaland's initiation of dependency proceedings against David. They include his instructions to David before proceedings were instituted to stay away from the children until custody had been resolved, and his subsequent testimony against David in the dependency proceedings. The district court held that Haaland was entitled to absolute immunity for these actions. We agree as to all except actions which were taken before the institution of judicial proceedings.

It is beyond question that Haaland is entitled to absolute immunity for the testimony he gave during the dependency proceedings and the custody hearing because witnesses, including government witnesses, are immune from liability for their testimony. Briscoe v. LaHue, 460 U.S. 325, 103 S.Ct. 1108, 75 L.Ed.2d 96 (1983).

Haaland should be accorded prosecutorial immunity for his role in the initiation of dependency proceedings against Meyers. The Supreme Court has held that prosecutorial immunity derives from a need for the exercise of independent judgment in the conduct of public duties. Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 423, 96 S.Ct. 984, 991, 47 L.Ed.2d 128 (1976). Prosecutorial immunity is absolute, rather than qualified, in order to permit prosecutors to perform their duties without fear of even the threat of section 1983 litigation. If the prosecutor were only qualifiedly immune,

the threat of Sec. 1983 suits would undermine performance of his duties no less than would the threat of common-law suits for malicious prosecution. A prosecutor is duty bound to exercise his best judgment both in deciding which suits to bring and in conducting them in court. The public trust of the prosecutor's office would suffer if he were constrained in making every decision by the consequences in terms of his own potential liability in a suit for damages.... Further, if the prosecutor could be made to answer in court each time ... a person charged him with wrongdoing, his energy and attention would be diverted from the pressing duty of enforcing the criminal law.

... Frequently acting under serious constraints of time and even information, a prosecutor inevitably makes many decisions that could engender colorable claims of constitutional deprivation. Defending these decisions, often years after they were made, could impose unique and intolerable burdens upon a prosecutor responsible annually for hundreds of indictments and trials.

Id. at 424-26, 96 S.Ct. at 992-93; see also Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478, 512, 98 S.Ct. 2894, 2913, 57 L.Ed.2d 895 (1978) ("[a]bsolute immunity is ... necessary to assure that judges, advocates, and witnesses can perform their respective functions without harassment or intimidation").

Although child services workers do not initiate criminal proceedings, their responsibility for bringing dependency proceedings, and their responsibility to exercise independent judgment in determining when to bring such proceedings, is not very different from the responsibility of a criminal prosecutor. The social worker must make a quick decision based on perhaps incomplete information as to whether to commence investigations and initiate proceedings against parents who may have abused their children. The social worker's independence, like that of a prosecutor, would be compromised were the social worker constantly in fear that a mistake could result in a time-consuming and financially devastating civil suit. We therefore hold that social workers are entitled to absolute immunity in performing quasi-prosecutorial functions connected with the initiation and pursuit of child dependency proceedings. Such a holding is consistent with the holdings of other courts. See, e.g., Kurzawa v. Mueller, 732 F.2d 1456, 1458 (6th Cir.1984); Pepper v. Alexander, 599 F.Supp. 523, 526-27 (D.N.M.1984); Whelehan v. County of Monroe, 558 F.Supp. 1093, 1098-99 (W.D.N.Y.1983).

We do not agree, however, that all of Haaland's alleged conduct falls within the scope of quasi-prosecutorial activities. On October 23, Haaland allegedly ordered Meyers to stay away from his home until after the hearing before the juvenile court. At that time, Haaland had not yet initiated dependency proceedings. Haaland is not entitled to absolute immunity for this act.

In Ashelman v. Pope, 793 F.2d 1072 (9th Cir.1986) (en banc), we examined the contours of both judicial and prosecutorial immunity. We stated:

Prosecutorial immunity has developed along much the same lines as judicial immunity. Immunity extends to protect a prosecutor who acts within his or her authority and in a quasi-judicial capacity.... Where a prosecutor acts as an advocate "in initiating the prosecution and in presenting the state's case," absolute immunity applies.

Id. at 1076 (quoting Imbler, 424 U.S. at 431, 96 S.Ct. at 995). Haaland's ordering of Meyers away from his home can be characterized neither as advocatory or quasi-judicial. Haaland's action did not aid him in the preparation or presentation of his case to the juvenile court. Compare Walden v. Wishengrad, 745 F.2d 149 (2d Cir.1984) (absolute immunity for social services attorney who requested warrant to insure testimony of witnesses). Rather than contributing to an informed judgment by an impartial decisionmaker as an advocate, Haaland acted unilaterally prior to the operation of the judicial process. We do not suggest that Haaland's alleged action was necessarily improper; it was merely not that of an advocate.

Furthermore, the policy considerations that support quasi-judicial immunity do not apply to Haaland's action. In Sellars v. Procunier, 641 F.2d 1295 (9th Cir.), cert. denied,...