Hardwick v. County of Orange, No. 17-56292 (9th Cir. 2020)
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In November 1999, the SSA filed a dependency petition on behalf of plaintiff and her sister against their parents. The juvenile dependency court assumed jurisdiction over the children, but permitted them to remain in their mother's custody and to have supervised visitation with their father. In February 2000, the dependency court ordered that the children be removed from mother's custody. In 2001, mother filed an action in California superior court alleging that Orange County social workers violated her constitutional right to familial association. The jury returned verdicts in favor of mother against all defendants except one. Plaintiff filed this 2013 federal action alleging that defendants violated her Fourteenth Amendment right to familial association and her Fourth Amendment right against wrongful seizure.
The Ninth Circuit held that where constitutional familial rights are at stake, there are identical companionship rights between a parent and child that could allow a plaintiff to invoke issue preclusion to bar relitigation of issues previously decided. However, in this case, plaintiff cannot assert issue preclusion because mother litigated more than just the overlapping companionship rights in her state court case and the panel cannot determine the basis for the jury's verdict. Therefore, plaintiff failed to establish that the issues litigated in the prior state proceeding were identical to the issues raised in her federal case.
Court Description: Civil Rights. The panel affirmed the district court’s judgment that plaintiff could not invoke issue preclusion to bar litigation in her action against Orange County and County social workers alleging Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment violations arising from plaintiff’s removal from her mother’s custody. A juvenile court ordered plaintiff’s removal in 2000, in the midst of dependency proceedings arising from her parents’ divorce litigation. Plaintiff’s mother brought a state court action in 2001 against County social workers, and a jury found that defendants violated the mother’s right to familial association and awarded damages. Plaintiff subsequently filed her federal action in 2013 against the same defendants, arguing in part, that her mother’s prior state court litigation conclusively determined that her removal from her mother’s custody violated her right of familial association. Plaintiff argued that defendants were therefore precluded from relitigating the issue of liability. The panel held that where constitutional familial rights are at stake, there are identical companionship rights between a parent and child that could allow a plaintiff to invoke issue preclusion to bar relitigation of issues previously decided. In this case, however, plaintiff could not assert issue preclusion because her mother litigated more than just the overlapping companionship rights in her state HARDWICK V. COUNTY OF ORANGE 3 court case and the panel could not determine the basis for the jury’s verdict. Plaintiff therefore failed to establish that the issues litigated in the prior state proceeding were identical to the issues raised in her federal case. Concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, Judge Tashima stated that he concurred in the judgment on the ground that plaintiff failed to establish the application of issue preclusion because of the special verdict’s ambiguity in the prior case. Judge Tashima wrote, however, that the majority engaged in an unnecessary discussion of the contours of the familial association right, and he dissociated himself from the majority’s assertion that a child’s correlative right of familial association includes no custody component.
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