United States Ninth Circuit

In a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 action alleging a student was unlawfully searched and seized, summary judgment for defendants is affirmed in part where: 1) the general law of search warrants applies to child abuse investigations; 2) however, precedent did not clearly establish that the in-school seizure of a student suspected of being the victim of child sexual abuse could be subject to traditional Fourth Amendment protections; and 3) applying the prior lower standard, defendants' actions were not so clearly invalid as to strip them of qualified immunity. However, the order is reversed in part where: 1) there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether defendant-social worker secured an order by misrepresenting his conversations with plaintiff-mother; and 2) social worker's decision to exclude mother from her daughters' medical examinations violated the parents' clearly established familial rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Appellate Information

• Argued 03/06/2008
• Decided 12/10/2009
• Published 12/10/2009

Judges

• BERZON, Circuit Judge:, Before:  MARSHA S. BERZON and CARLOS T. BEA, Circuit Judges, and PHILIP GUTIERREZ, District Judge.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Mikel R. Miller, Law Office of Mikel R. Miller, Bend, OR, for the plaintiff-appellant.


• For Appellees:
  
• Hardy Myers, Attorney General;  Mary H. Williams, Solicitor General;  David B. Thompson, Senior Assistant Attorney General;  for Bob Camreta, Defendant-Appellee., Janet M. Schroer, Hoffman, Hart & Wagner, LLP, for Terry Friesen and Bend LaPine School District, defendants-appellees., Christopher Bell and Mark P. Amberg, Deschutes County Legal Counsel, for Deputy Sheriff James Alford and Deschutes County, defendants-appellees.