Medicraft v. Washington

1

JAMES MEDICRAFT, et al., Plaintiffs, v. STATE OF WASHINGTON, et al., Defendants.

No. 2:21-cv-1263

United States District Court, W.D. Washington, Seattle

October 5, 2022

ORDER ADOPTING PART AND REJECTING IN PART REPORT AND RECOMMANDATION

Barbara Jacobs Rothstein, U.S. District Court Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

This matter comes before the Court on the Report and Recommendation (“R&R”) of U.S. Magistrate Judge Michelle Peterson. Dkt. No. 87. The R&R recommends that the Court grant the Motion to Dismiss filed by Defendants Derek Leuzzi (“Leuzzi”) and Jane Doe Leuzzi (collectively, “Defendants”). Dkt. No. 61. Having considered the briefs filed in support of and opposition to the Motion to Dismiss; the Report and Recommendation; the Plaintiffs' Objection and Defendants' Response thereto; and the remainder of the record and relevant case law, the Court finds and rules as follows.

II. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs James and Shaylee Medicraft and their five children filed this lawsuit against the State of Washington and numerous individual defendants, including Department of Children, Youth, and Families (“DCYF”) social workers Tanessa Sanchez and Elizabeth Sterbick and, relevant to the instant motion, Assistant Attorney General Derek Leuzzi, counsel for DCYF. Among other things, Plaintiffs claim under 42 U.S.C. §1983 an infringement of their constitutional right to the “care, custody, and control of their children,” arising from Defendants' alleged actions in connection with dependency proceedings concerning the five minor Medicraft children. Sec. Am. Compl., (“SAC”), Dkt. No. 55, ¶ 1. Those proceedings began in early 2019 and culminated in the children being removed from their parents' custody on December 6, 2019, pursuant to an Order Placing Children in Shelter Care, issued by Judge Mafe Rajul, King County Superior Court, Juvenile Department. See Dkt. No. 1-1, Ex. BB at 164-167.

Plaintiffs have claimed that while in state custody, the children were subjected to abusive treatment, including being forced to spend nights in DCYF vehicles and offices, held in locked empty rooms, and exposed to assault by other children and DCYF agents. SAC ¶¶ 59, 65-66, 75, 83-84. On October 28, 2020, King County Superior Court Judge Susan Amini issued an Order Dismissing Dependency, ordering that the children be returned to their parents. Compl., Ex. A. The family is currently residing in South Carolina. SAC, ¶¶ 2 & 3.

Generally speaking, the allegations against Defendant Leuzzi are related to actions taken in his role as counsel for DCYF in the Medicraft child dependency proceedings. More specifically, the Court gleans from the Second Amended Complaint the following allegations relevant to the instant motion. Defendant Leuzzi allegedly: (1) drafted and induced DCYF social workers to sign declarations, falsely stating among other things that the Medicraft parents failed to appear for a February 6, 2019 court appearance in New York State, SAC, ¶¶ 31-34; (2) filed a sworn declaration falsely stating that Mrs. Medicraft “reportedly” has a history of drug and/or alcohol abuse and/or mental health issues, and had been ordered by a court to undergo chemical dependency treatment, id., ¶¶ 41-42; (3) “without basis” sought court orders to medicate the children, id., ¶ 47; (4) misrepresented a history of domestic violence, id. ¶ 44; and (5) “without basis, sought to deprive Mr. Medicraft of visitation rights.” Id. ¶ 45. The SAC contains other vague and generalized allegations against Leuzzi, including that he “failed to follow the law, working to remove the children without an imminent threat and without a court order,” and, “acting in an investigative role, met with social workers to plan the removal of the children.” Id. ¶ 43, 35. Leuzzi is named in two causes of action: (1) for a deprivation of rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, id., Tenth Cause of Action, ¶¶ 220-30; and (2) for conspiracy to fabricate false information about the Medicraft parents. Id., Twenty-third Cause of Action, ¶¶ 290-91.

The Leuzzi Defendants moved for dismissal of all claims against them, under Federal Rule 12(b)(6), claiming that Leuzzi is entitled to the absolute immunity afforded prosecutors under certain circumstances or, in the alternative, to qualified immunity from Plaintiffs' claims. Plaintiffs opposed the motion. The R&R recommends that the Court find that Leuzzi is entitled to absolute immunity for all of the actions alleged in the SAC, and that he should be dismissed from this case. Defendants filed Objections to the R&R; Plaintiffs filed a Response to those Objections.

III. DISCUSSION

A. Motion to Dismiss Standard

On a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule 12(b)(6), a complaint may be dismissed as a matter of law either for lack of a cognizable legal theory or for insufficient facts under a cognizable theory. Balistreri v. Pacifica Police Dep't, 901 F.2d 696, 699 (9th Cir. 1988). In ruling on the motion, a court must “accept all material allegations of fact as true and construe the complaint in a light most favorable to the non-moving party.” Vasquez v. Los Angeles Cnty., 487 F.3d 1246, 1249 (9th Cir. 2007).

Federal Rule 8(a)(2) provides that a complaint must contain only “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” The Supreme Court has interpreted this rule to mean that “[f]actual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level[.]” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). The allegations in the complaint must “contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570). “A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged. The plausibility standard is not akin to a ‘probability requirement,' but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.” Id. (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556).

Well-pled allegations in the complaint are assumed to be true, but a court is not required to accept legal conclusions couched as facts, unwarranted deductions, or unreasonable inferences. See Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286 (1986); Sprewell v. Golden State Warriors, 266 F.3d 979, 988 (9th Cir. 2001), opinion amended on denial of reh'g, 275 F.3d 1187 (9th Cir. 2001).

B. Whether Defendant Leuzzi Is Entitled to Absolute Immunity

1. The Law of Absolute Immunity

Leuzzi argues that he is entitled to absolute prosecutorial immunity in connection with all of the conduct alleged in this lawsuit. At common law, the actions of judges, prosecutors, and other officials that were “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process” have been afforded absolute immunity from suit. Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 430 (1976). Courts have extended the doctrine to attorneys acting on behalf of the state in certain civil proceedings and to social workers, reasoning that “the initiation and pursuit of child-dependency proceedings [are] prosecutorial in nature and warrant absolute immunity on that basis.” Miller v. Gammie, 335 F.3d 889, 896 (9th Cir. 2003); see also Torres v. Goddard, 793 F.3d 1046, 1051 (9th Cir. 2015) (holding absolute immunity may apply in civil forfeiture context, as Supreme Court “has extended the reasoning of Imbler to agency officials ‘performing certain functions analogous to those of a prosecutor'”) (citing Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478, 515 (1978)).

Absolute immunity is available, however, only where the “‘activity or function' ... was part and parcel of presenting the state's case as a generic advocate.” Cox v. Dept. of Soc. & Health Servs., 913 F.3d 831, 838 (9th Cir. 2019) (quoting Hardwick v. Cty. of Orange, 844 F.3d 1112, 1115 (9th Cir. 2017)). In particular, actions taken “during or to initiate [dependency] proceedings” are protected by absolute immunity. See Chen v. D'Amico, 428 F.Supp.3d 483, 502 (W.D. Wash. 2019) (citing Miller, 335 F.3d at 898) (noting that “the critical decision to institute proceedings to make a child a ward of the state is functionally similar to the prosecutorial institution of a criminal proceeding”); see also Zayas v. Walton, 2022 WL 1468997, at *4 (W.D. Wash. May 10, 2022) (“An assistant attorney general acting as legal counsel for the Department of Children, Youth and Families in child dependency proceedings performs quasi-prosecutorial functions and is entitled to immunity for actions in connection with initiating and pursuing child dependency proceedings.”) (citing Ernst v. Child & Youth Servs. of Chester Cnty., 108 F.3d 486, 504 (3d Cir. 1997) (attorney representing a state child services agency is “entitled to absolute immunity for all of [the attorney's] quasi prosecutorial activities while representing [the agency] in connection with [a child's] dependency proceedings[.]”).

It follows, therefore, that in determining whether absolute immunity applies, courts are to focus on the “activities” of which the defendant is accused and on “the nature of the function performed, not the identity of the actor who performed it.” Milstein v. Cooley, 257 F.3d 1004 (2001) (citing Kalina v. Fletcher, 522 U.S. 118, 127 (1997)). Thus, “a prosecutor is entitled to absolute immunity for acts taken “in preparing for the initiation of judicial proceedings or for trial, and which occur in his role as an advocate for the State.” Kalina, 522 U.S. at 126. Those same officials are not entitled to absolute immunity, however, “when they perform investigatory or administrative functions, or are essentially functioning as police officers or...