Packwood v. Contra Costa Children and Family Services

Background

County Defendants—the County of Contra Costa, Contra Costa Children and Family Services, the County Office of the Sheriff, and several County employees—asked the court to declare Taylor Packwood and Andrea Wood vexatious litigants. Erica Bains and Ravinder Bains joined that request. A vexatious-litigant order is a court order restricting a person’s ability to file new lawsuits without prior approval.

The request was based on Wood’s lawsuits concerning the 2017 removal of her children from her custody, the later state child-dependency proceedings, and the children’s custody conditions. The court reviewed ten civil actions Wood had filed in the district. Some actions were dismissed because federal courts lacked jurisdiction, because the claims could not be brought through the requested procedure, or for other stated procedural reasons. Other actions repeated claims from earlier cases. Wood voluntarily dismissed some cases after defendants filed motions to dismiss.

Packwood was a plaintiff in three of the ten actions. In two earlier actions, his claims were dismissed without prejudice because he was a minor and did not appear through a lawyer. In the current case, however, Packwood had reached adulthood, and the court had found at the pleading stage that he stated a viable Fourth Amendment claim against two County employees.

Legal standard

The court stated that a federal district court has inherent authority to impose pre-filing restrictions on vexatious litigants. Before doing so, the court must provide adequate notice, create a sufficient record, make substantive findings that the litigant’s actions were frivolous or harassing, and narrowly tailor the restrictions to the particular misconduct.

A pre-filing order may be appropriate when a plaintiff files an unusually large number of frivolous complaints or when the filings show a pattern of harassment.

Court’s analysis

As to Wood, the court found that the record satisfied both alternatives. It determined that several of Wood’s complaints were frivolous because they lacked a legally arguable basis or duplicated claims previously rejected. The court also found the number of complaints unusually large: the County appeared as a defendant in all ten actions, County employees appeared in eight, Erica Bains appeared in eight, and Ravinder Bains appeared in six.

The court further found a pattern of harassment. Defendants repeatedly had to respond to Wood’s repetitive claims, and earlier dismissals had not stopped her from filing similar actions. The court noted that Wood had received notice in earlier cases that continuing to file meritless cases could lead to a vexatious-litigant finding.

The court found that Packwood had not engaged in the type of frivolous or harassing conduct necessary to support a vexatious-litigant order. It therefore denied the request as to him without prejudice to renewal if circumstances changed.

Disposition

The court granted the request as to Wood and declared Andrea Wood a vexatious litigant. The Clerk of Court may not file or accept a future complaint from Wood against the County, any County department or employee, or Erica or Ravinder Bains when the complaint concerns the 2017 removal of her children, the later child-dependency proceedings, or the children’s custody conditions, unless the district’s general duty judge first reviews and approves it. Wood must submit the proposed complaint, a filing-request letter, and a copy of this order to the Clerk for that review.

The court denied the request as to Taylor Packwood without prejudice. In a separate order filed at the same time, the court had granted in part and denied in part the motion to dismiss the first amended complaint; this order addressed only the vexatious-litigant request.