C.M. v. Comm'r of the Dep't of Children & Families

487 Mass. 639

169 N.E.3d 466

C.M.

v.COMMISSIONER OF the DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES & others.¹

SJC-13015

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Argued February 5, 2021.

Decided June 11, 2021.

Eric Tennen, Boston, for the plaintiff.

Jesse M. Boodoo, Assistant Attorney General, for the defendants.

Andrew Cohen & Amy Karp, Committee for Public Counsel Services, & Melanie L. Todman, Kate J. Bergeron, Jennifer G. Roma, & Kelly C. Hogan, for Committee for Public Counsel Services, amicus curiae, submitted a brief.

Present: Budd, C.J., Gaziano, Lowy, Kafker, & Georges, JJ.

GEORGES, J.

At issue in this case is the scope of immunity afforded to social workers in the Department of Children and Families (department) who attest to facts in sworn affidavits as part of care and protection proceedings commenced by the department in the Juvenile Court pursuant to G. L. c. 119, § 24 ( § 24 ). The plaintiff, C.M., brought an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ( § 1983 ) in the Superior Court against the defendant Marcie Plouffe, a department social worker, alleging that she intentionally misrepresented facts in a sworn affidavit filed in the Juvenile Court in support of a care and protection petition (petition). C.M.’s complaint further alleged that Plouffe's area supervisor, the defendant Candice Gemski, also was liable because she had approved Plouffe's actions.

Plouffe and Gemski (collectively, defendants) sought judgment on the pleadings pursuant to Mass. R. Civ. P. 12 (c), 365 Mass. 754 (1974). They argued that Plouffe's conduct was protected by absolute immunity, and that the immunity afforded to Plouffe also extended to Gemski as Plouffe's superior. In opposing the defendants’ motion, C.M. maintained that social workers are not afforded such immunity at common law, because the act of misrepresenting facts to a court is "never afforded absolute immunity." After a hearing, a Superior Court judge allowed the defendants’ motion, and C.M. appealed from the judgment to the Appeals Court. The Appeals Court reversed, in part, concluding that the defendants were not absolutely immune from liability under § 1983 for the averments in Plouffe's affidavit.

C.M. v. Commissioner of the Dep't of Children & Families, 97 Mass. App. Ct. 343, 355, 147 N.E.3d 527 (2020).

We granted the defendants’ application for further appellate review, limited to the question of the scope of immunity afforded to department social workers, and their approving supervisors, for the averments contained in affidavits accompanying, and filed with, petitions under § 24.² For the reasons that follow, we conclude that department social workers, and their approving supervisors, are entitled to absolute immunity in these circumstances. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment entered in the Superior Court.³

Background. We first provide a brief overview of how § 24 petitions are initiated. We then summarize the relevant and undisputed facts, reserving the development of certain facts for later discussion.

1. Section 24 proceedings. "The purpose of G. L. c. 119 is to protect children ‘against the harmful effects resulting from the absence, inability, inadequacy or destructive behavior of parents or parent substitutes.’ " Care & Protection of Lillian, 445 Mass. 333, 335, 837 N.E.2d 269 (2005), quoting G. L. c. 119, § 1. Care and protection proceedings under § 24 are initiated in the Juvenile Court upon the filing of a petition, which must establish that a child's well-being requires his or her removal from the household due to at least one of the four concerns enumerated in the statute. Specifically, the petitioner must allege "under oath" that a child "(a) is without necessary and proper physical or educational care and discipline; (b) is growing up under conditions or circumstances damaging to the child's sound character development; (c) lacks proper attention of the parent, guardian with care and custody or custodian; or (d) has a parent, guardian or custodian who is unwilling, incompetent or unavailable to provide any such care, discipline or attention." G. L. c. 119, § 24.

While the statute provides that any "person" may file a petition, see G. L. c. 119, § 24, in practice, petitions "are usually filed by [the department] or by another health or welfare agency involved with children." See 1 S.M. Limon, Massachusetts Juvenile Court Bench Book § 15.2.1(a), at 15-2 (Mass. Cont. Legal Educ. 3d ed. 2011 & Supp. 2014). To comply with the requirements of § 24, petitioners customarily file "an affidavit or other report under oath outlining the alleged factual basis for the petition." See id. at 15-3. See Care & Protection of Lillian, 445 Mass. at 337, 837 N.E.2d 269 (petition sufficiently pleaded "if it alleges specific facts, based on personal knowledge or on information and belief, that, if true, fall within at least one of those four enumerated concerns [in § 24 ]"). Taken together, § 24 petitions are customarily (although not exclusively) filed by department social workers, and the petition -- including the factual bases for the petition -- statutorily must be filed under oath.

After the petition is filed, and both parents receive a summons and notice, a Juvenile Court judge holds an initial hearing, which may be held ex parte, in order to determine whether there is "reasonable cause" for a Juvenile Court judge to order the temporary removal of the child from his or her parents. See G. L. c. 119, § 24. If the judge makes such a finding and authorizes temporary removal of the child from the household, then "[ § 24 ] mandates a temporary custody hearing within seventy-two hours to determine whether temporary custody shall continue until a hearing on the merits of the petition for care and protection."⁴ Care & Protection of Zita, 455 Mass. 272, 276, 915 N.E.2d 1067 (2009), citing G. L. c. 119, § 24.⁵

2. Care and protection of the child.⁶ On three occasions between 2004 and 2011, the department received reports indicating that C.M. had left the child alone with the child's father, a registered level three sex offender. On the first two occasions, in 2004 and 2009, the department investigated the reports and imposed safety plans to mitigate possible risks to the child going forward. The safety plans included prohibiting unsupervised contact between the child and the father. Following a third report of unsupervised contact in 2011, Plouffe became involved with the family for the first time.

Between August and September 2011, Plouffe met with and interviewed C.M., the child, and the father several times. During these meetings, she discussed the importance of the father's discontinuing unsupervised contact with the child. In October of 2011, Plouffe proposed a safety plan providing that the father would not have unsupervised contact with the child in any circumstances, and that the family would engage in department services. C.M. refused to agree to the proposed safety plan; she maintained that the father posed no risk to the child's physical well-being.

Based on their conclusion that C.M. either did not understand, or was unwilling to take, the necessary steps to obviate the risk that the father posed to the child, the defendants then determined that the child was at risk. In response, the defendants decided to petition the Juvenile Court to remove the child from the home. When Plouffe informed C.M. of the department's intention to file a petition under § 24, Plouffe believed, based on C.M.’s behavior during their interaction, which was markedly different from the tone of all of their earlier interactions, that C.M. intended to flee with the child, or to harm herself or the child.⁷

To initiate the proceedings, Plouffe submitted to the Juvenile Court, inter alia, a report containing a five-page affidavit detailing the factual bases for the petition, and the department's request for emergency custody.⁸ On the same day that the petition was filed, a Juvenile Court judge held an ex parte hearing in which Plouffe testified under oath. At the conclusion of the hearing, the judge ordered that the department receive temporary custody of the child. The matter then was scheduled for a "seventy-two hour hearing," as required under § 24, in which C.M., through her attorney, initially participated, but she then waived her rights to prior to its completion.⁹

In December of 2011, after an independent physician certified that C.M. understood the risks posed by the father, the judge ordered that physical custody of the child be returned to C.M., but that legal custody of the child remain with the department pending final disposition of the matter. In April 2012, an investigator appointed by the Juvenile Court submitted a report recommending that the custody proceedings against C.M. be dismissed, provided that the family agreed to a new safety plan addressing safe contact between the father and the child. C.M. agreed to the new safety plan that was based on the investigator's recommendation, and the judge dismissed the case in May 2012.

3. Procedural history. Over two years later, in September of 2014, C.M. commenced the present action in the Superior Court against Plouffe, Gemski, the department itself, and other department personnel. As is relevant to our analysis, the first count of the amended complaint alleged, pursuant to § 1983,¹⁰ that the defendants had violated C.M.’s substantive due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution by "unjustifiably removing [the child] from her care, custody and control." Specifically, C.M. asserted that Plouffe, with Gemski's approval, had wrongly initiated the care and protection proceedings, and that Plouffe had made false statements in her affidavit initiating the same.

The defendants then filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings, which C.M. opposed.¹¹ Subsequently, a judge in the Superior Court issued an order allowing the defendants’ motion. The judge concluded that the defendants were absolutely immune...