RASHEED v. INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF CHILD SERVICES (2020)

Order

Louisa Rasheed contends that a state judge wrongfully removed her son from her care as a result of perjury committed by employees of “Floyed County CPS”. (The child-care agency located in Floyd County is part of the state’s Department of Child Services, which we have substituted as the proper defendant. See Townsley v. Marion County Department of Child Services, 848 N.E.2d 684, 686 n.5 (Ind. App. 2006).) She sought relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, but the district court held that states and their agencies are not “persons” for the purpose of that statute. See 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 117714 (S.D. Ind. July 16, 2019), relying on Will v. Michigan Department of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1989). After dismissing the federal claim, the district court declined to entertain state-law theories.

The body of Rasheed’s complaint mentions Haylee Cody, one of the Department’s employees. The district judge did not treat Cody as a defendant. Rasheed’s brief in this court does not mention Cody, so we need not decide whether it would have been possible for her to proceed against Cody, or some other natural person, under the approach of Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908).

Rasheed contends on appeal that Indiana wrongly interfered with her fundamental right to direct the upbringing of her child. See Sebesta v. Davis, 878 F.3d 226, 228 (7th Cir. 2017). Her immediate problem, however, is her failure to name as a defendant any “person” within the scope of § 1983. Rasheed’s appellate brief ignores this problem, even though it was the principal ground on which she lost in the district court.

Our conclusion that this suit must be dismissed for failure to name a “person” makes it unnecessary to consider the bearing of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, which prohibits federal district courts from reviewing the decisions of state tribunals in civil litigation. See District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983); Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 44 S.Ct. 149, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923). But Rasheed must understand that, if she wishes to contest a decision of a state court regarding custody of her son, she must appeal within the state judiciary and potentially seek review by the Supreme Court of the United States, rather than file an independent suit in federal district court.

AFFIRMED