United States Ninth Circuit

In a suit to determine whether California's maintenance of the Child Abuse Central Index violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because identified individuals are not given a fair opportunity to challenge the allegations against them, summary judgment for the defendants is affirmed in part where certain officers either did not participate in the violations or reasonably complied with duly-enacted statutes. Summary judgment is reversed in part where it is possible that defendant adopted a custom and policy that violated the plaintiffs' constitutional rights, but the issue is not clear based on the record on appeal and the issue was not briefed by the parties, thus the matter is remanded to the district court to determine whether or not defendant is entitled to qualified immunity.

Appellate Information

• Argued 10/19/2007
• Decided 01/15/2009
• Published 01/15/2009

Judges

• Before:  JAY S. BYBEE and MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judges, and RICHARD MILLS, District Judge.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Esther G. Boynton (argued), Beverly Hills, CA, for the plaintiffs-appellants., Carolyn A. Kubitschek, Lansner & Kubitschek, New York, NY, for the amicus National Coalition for Child Protection Reform.


• For Appellees:
  
• Mark D. Rutter, Carpenter, Rothans & Dumont, Los Angeles, CA;  Martin Stein, Alison Turner, Lillie Hsu (argued), Greines, Martin, Stein & Richland LLP, Los Angeles, CA, for the defendants-appellees., Edmund G. Brown Jr., Attorney General of the State of California, David S. Chaney, Chief Assistant Attorney General, James T. Schiavenza, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Marsha S. Miller, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Paul C. Epstein (argued), Deputy Attorney General, State of California Department of Justice, Office of the Attorney General, Los Angeles, CA, for the defendant-appellee.