Doe v. County of Santa Clara

Background

The plaintiffs sued over alleged harm they suffered while in foster care. The County of Santa Clara moved to dismiss the third amended complaint for failure to state a claim. The plaintiffs alleged that County policies and customs caused violations of their constitutional rights, including rights to protection from harm and minimally adequate care.

The plaintiffs added allegations concerning the County’s visitation practices. They alleged that the County did not visit foster children in their placements and instead required visits at visitation centers. They also alleged that between 21 and 40 percent of foster children did not receive social-worker visits during the relevant period. According to the plaintiffs, social workers never visited or evaluated the home where they lived, and a home-visit policy could have helped reveal the abuse before their adoption.

Court’s Analysis

The court applied the standard for a motion to dismiss, under which the complaint must contain enough factual allegations to make the claim legally plausible. It considered whether the plaintiffs alleged both a constitutional violation and a County policy or custom that caused that violation. This type of claim is commonly called a Monell claim, meaning a claim that a local government is responsible for harm caused by its policy or custom rather than merely by an employee’s isolated conduct.

The court held that the plaintiffs adequately alleged a protected right to safety and minimally adequate care as children in government care. It stated that social workers owe foster children a duty to protect them from harm and provide minimally adequate care, and that the complaint supported a reasonable inference that the County’s alleged failure to supervise foster care could have exposed the plaintiffs and other children to abuse.

The court rejected the plaintiffs’ theory that the County discriminated by disproportionately removing Latina children and failing to place them with biological relatives. The plaintiffs did not allege that they had a pre-existing custodial relationship with relatives that gave them a constitutional right to placement with those relatives. The court also noted that the plaintiffs had repeatedly denied being wrongfully removed from their biological parents’ care.

The court allowed the claim based on the alleged policy of failing to visit and evaluate children in their placements to proceed, describing the issue as a close call. The court found that the allegations were just sufficient to support an inference that home visits could have uncovered abuse and that the alleged problem was not merely isolated or sporadic.

The court found the other alleged policies insufficiently pleaded. It stated that the claims concerning failure to coordinate with other counties and service providers and failure to properly evaluate adoption homes lacked allegations of a broader practice or pattern. It also found that the plaintiffs did not allege that high social-worker caseloads occurred during the relevant period, caused their harm, or produced a policy of inadequate home evaluations.

Disposition

The court granted in part and denied in part the County’s motion to dismiss the third amended complaint. The plaintiffs may proceed on the theory that the County’s policy of not visiting children in their placements violated their rights to safety and minimally adequate care as children in government care. The County was ordered to file an answer by March 3, 2025. The court also scheduled an initial case-management conference for March 21, 2025, and required a joint case-management statement by March 14, 2025.