A federal appeals court cleared the path on Tuesday forward for a father\u2019s lawsuit that claims New York City\u2019s Administration for Children\u2019s Services (ACS) unconstitutionally separated him from his infant son for nearly three years.<\/p>\n
The U.S Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed a lower court\u2019s decision dismissing the case. If the father is able to prove his case, the court found, it would constitute a violation of his and his son\u2019s constitutional rights against un-lawful seizure and the right to due process on behalf of the infant. The claims against the City of New York and ACS caseworker Amar Moody will move forward to trial or discovery.<\/p>\n
The case involves a father in the Bronx, referred to by his initials K.W., who sued on behalf of himself and his son, K.A., after a city foster care system allegedly removed the newborn from his custody without a court order. K.W. is seeking fair and punitive damages for the separation.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy infant son was torn from my arms by ACS when he was just a few days old and put into foster care with strangers,\u201d said K.W., the father in his appeal. \u201cI fought with all my heart and might to get him back for nearly three years. After my son came home, we\u2019ve been fighting to right that devastating wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
On appeal, K.W.\u2019s case attracted support from both constitutional law and children\u2019s legal defense groups. In one amicus brief<\/a>, the Center for Constitutional rights framed the separation of the baby from his father, who is Black, as a racial issue that has roots in racist policing. Another brief<\/a> said the city \u201cdid not come close to meeting constitutional standards\u201d in taking an action that causes lifelong trauma to children.<\/p>\n According to the civil complaint, ACS took custody of the baby based on the mother\u2019s history of child neglect of her children by other fathers. K.W. himself was never accused of any fitness issues or wrongdoing.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nearly a week after K.A. was born, an ACS caseworker Amar Moody told K.W. that he was removing K.A. from his custody on an emergency basis\u2014without prior judicial authorization\u2014because of K.A.\u2019s mother\u2019s history of ACS violations, despite not seeking a court order for the removal.<\/p>\n The city agency allegedly filed a child protective petition against the mother six days after the baby\u2019s birth, without asserting any wrongdoing against K.W.\u00a0<\/p>\n A family court judge granted this request on the view that based on ACS\u2019s allegations against the baby\u2019s mother, giving the father custody would be against the child\u2019s welfare. It made no mention of the fact that the father had been caring for the baby since his birth, according to the court papers.<\/p>\n K.W. was denied custody of his son for nearly three years, with the baby housed in a foster home. Though K.W. was never accused of any misbehavior, he had to file a paternity petition and complete a service plan requiring parenting safety classes. He didn\u2019t regain custody fo his son until two years and eight months later.<\/p>\n The court found several different claims that K.W. had his constitutional rights violated should move forward.\n<\/p>\n First, they found merit to the claims that Moody\u2019s removal of K.A. from his father\u2019s care without a court order or the requisite emergency circumstances could amount to a violation of K.A.\u2019s Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable seizure.<\/p>\n The court also found that if K.W. is able to prove that Moody intentionally or recklessly omitted critical facts from the court petition\u2014such as K.W.\u2019s status as the father \u2014 it would amount to violation K.A. \u2018s Fourth Amendment rights.\u00a0<\/p>\n They further proposed that by keeping the child in state custody for nearly three years without initiating proceedings against K.W., the city deprived K.A. of his due-process rights. The court dismissed K.W.\u2019s due process claim on the ground that it was time-barred.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the city Law Department said that it is looking into the court\u2019s ruling.\n<\/p>\n K.W. and his son were represented on appeal by the Family Justice Law Center, WilmerHale, Brustein Law PLLC, and Risman & Risman.\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an enormous win for Mr. W. and his son\u2014and for fidelity to fundamental family rights,\u201d said David Shalleck-Klein, founder of the Family Justice Law Center. \u201cWe\u2019re thrilled that the family can keep fighting for justice to address the unconstitutional and unconscionable three-year nightmare caused by ACS.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal appeals court cleared the path on Tuesday forward for a father\u2019s lawsuit that claims New York…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":813650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,152778,7713,53534,3228,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-813649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-amlaw","tag-child-welfare","tag-federal-court","tag-law","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116616018387271739","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}