T.F. v. Hennepin County

Background

The plaintiffs are fourteen children in Hennepin County’s child-welfare system. They alleged that many had suffered abuse and neglect in their biological and foster families. They sought to represent two proposed classes: all children in the County’s child-welfare system and children who are or will be the subject of maltreatment reports in Hennepin County.

The second amended complaint presented four claims: (1) that defendants’ policies, customs, or practices violated the plaintiffs’ substantive due-process right to protection from harm; (2) that defendants violated a right to a permanent home; (3) that defendants violated the Child Welfare Act; and (4) that the County Defendants conducted negligent investigations. The plaintiffs included the Child Welfare Act claim only to preserve it for appeal, and the court did not discuss it further.

In an earlier order, the court had dismissed the Child Welfare Act claim with prejudice because the Act does not create a private right to sue. It dismissed the permanent-home and negligence claims without prejudice because they had not been adequately pleaded. The court also dismissed claims against the Commissioner for plaintiffs whose legal custodian was the County rather than the State, declined to dismiss the case under abstention principles, and declined to find that statutory immunity barred the negligence claim. For these motions, the court assumed that the plaintiffs’ next friends were appropriate representatives, while noting that defendants had challenged their authenticity in a matter pending before a magistrate judge.

Permanent-home claim

The plaintiffs argued that their second cause of action did not assert a constitutional right to a permanent home. Instead, they characterized it as a constitutional claim based on defendants’ alleged failure to make reasonable efforts to protect them from chronically unstable living arrangements.

The court rejected that argument. It acknowledged that children in foster care are entitled to adequate medical care, protection, and supervision, but held that there is no constitutional right to protection from chronically unstable living arrangements. The court also rejected the argument that rights involving family relationships and privacy support recognizing such a new constitutional right. It therefore dismissed the second cause of action with prejudice.

Negligence claim

The negligence claim was brought only against the County Defendants and on behalf of the maltreatment-report class. The plaintiffs alleged that negligent and inadequate maltreatment investigations had caused and would cause children to endure further abuse and neglect.

The County Defendants argued that the allegations were insufficient and that the plaintiffs were improperly treating a statutory violation as negligence per se. The court concluded that the plaintiffs had pleaded a conventional negligence claim: the statute could establish a duty, the County Defendants allegedly violated that duty, and children were allegedly harmed or placed at increased risk of harm. At the motion-to-dismiss stage, the plaintiffs were required to allege facts that plausibly stated a claim, not provide all their evidence. The court found that they had done so.

The County Defendants also argued that statutory immunity barred the negligence claim. The court adhered to its earlier determination that the alleged failures involved operational-level decisions rather than planning-level decisions. It therefore declined to dismiss the negligence claim on statutory-immunity grounds.

Disposition

The court ordered that the Hennepin County Defendants’ motion to dismiss was granted in part and denied in part. The Commissioner’s motion to dismiss was granted. The plaintiffs’ second cause of action was dismissed with prejudice.