Jones v. County of Westchester

Background

D.J. was a minor receiving services from or in the care of Westchester County. Latonia Jones is D.J.’s mother. Rosa Hazoury and Elke Knudsen were County senior case managers responsible for D.J.’s care. Lisa Colin was an attorney appointed to represent D.J. and her siblings in Family Court.

D.J. was removed from her mother’s care at age five. After a temporary placement in a therapeutic foster home, she spent substantial time in County Defendants’ care and was hospitalized at various facilities. Plaintiffs alleged that D.J. was improperly medicated and hospitalized, isolated, and denied an education, causing physical, mental, and emotional decline.

Plaintiffs sought leave to file a revised proposed Third Amended Complaint. The proposed complaint asserted twelve causes of action, including Fourteenth Amendment due process, municipal policy-or-practice liability, disability claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act, state constitutional and statutory claims, negligence, negligent supervision, failure to train, emotional distress, legal malpractice, and loss of consortium. Defendants opposed amendment and alternatively moved to dismiss.

Leave to Amend

The court granted Plaintiffs’ motion for leave to file the proposed Third Amended Complaint. Although the complaint was 54 pages and contained 368 paragraphs, the court concluded that verbosity alone did not require dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8. The court found that Plaintiffs alleged enough facts to state some plausible claims.

Due-Process Claims

The court dismissed D.J.’s substantive due-process claims concerning medical treatment and placements. It held that various immunities protected the individual County Defendants from claims based on recommendations or actions involving placements and treatment submitted to Family Court. Qualified immunity also applied to claims arising from medical treatment because it was objectively reasonable for caseworkers to rely on medical professionals’ judgments. New York statutory immunity applied to alleged medical treatment, facility placement, and routine-service conduct when performed in good faith.

The court concluded that the proposed complaint adequately alleged a due-process claim against the individual County Defendants based on failing to provide D.J. with an education. The complaint also alleged failures to comply with a Family Court order and to implement care plans, and the court found that immunity did not resolve those allegations at the motion-to-dismiss stage. The court did not require exhaustion under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act because the allegations concerned failure to enroll D.J. in any education program, rather than failure to provide an appropriate educational program.

The court dismissed the substantive due-process claim against the County because the proposed complaint did not plausibly allege a County policy, custom, or failure to train that caused the constitutional violation. It also dismissed the other due-process claims because reliance on medical providers and court-ordered or emergency placements was reasonable, and the allegations about other services did not clearly identify a constitutionally protected right. Overall, the court dismissed D.J.’s substantive due-process claims against all Defendants except the education claim against the individual County Defendants.

Municipal Policy-or-Practice Claims

The court dismissed the additional policy-or-practice claims against the County. It held that the proposed complaint did not plausibly identify a County policy or custom connected to an underlying constitutional violation. Allegations concerning deliberate indifference toward one individual were insufficient to infer a widespread County policy, and the allegations about the County’s policies and practices were conclusory.

Americans with Disabilities Act Claims

The court dismissed D.J.’s claim based on access to the foster-care system because the proposed complaint did not adequately allege the conditions required for a claim based on institutional placement rather than community placement. The court also dismissed the Americans with Disabilities Act claims against the individual County Defendants because individuals cannot be held liable for damages under the asserted Title II theory.

The court allowed D.J.’s claim against the County based on failure to provide an education to proceed. It found that the proposed complaint plausibly alleged that D.J. was a qualified individual who could participate in educational services and that the County Defendants failed to register her for school in violation of a Family Court order. The court again concluded that Individuals with Disabilities Education Act exhaustion was not required for this alleged failure to enroll D.J. in any education program.

State and Common-Law Claims

The court dismissed Plaintiffs’ state constitutional claim because Plaintiffs stated that they intended to abandon it. It dismissed the claims under the Social Services Law and Family Court Articles Six and Ten because the allegations were unclear and Plaintiffs did not respond to the dismissal argument, treating the claims as abandoned.

The court denied the County Defendants’ motion to dismiss the negligence claim insofar as it concerned ongoing injuries arising from failure to provide D.J. with an education. It found that the County Defendants owed D.J. a duty and that the allegations could potentially amount to gross negligence or recklessness, which would not be protected by the cited statutory immunity. The court dismissed the negligent-supervision and failure-to-train claims as abandoned or unavailable under the asserted theory. It dismissed the intentional- and negligent-infliction-of-emotional-distress claims because they were based on conduct covered by Plaintiffs’ other claims and were also treated as abandoned.

The court dismissed the legal-malpractice claim against Colin. The proposed complaint did not allege that Colin acted in bad faith, acted negligently, or caused D.J.’s alleged injuries. The court also dismissed Latonia Jones’s loss-of-consortium claim because New York does not allow a parent to recover for loss of consortium of a child.

Disposition

Plaintiffs’ motion to amend was granted. Colin’s motion to dismiss was granted in its entirety. The County Defendants’ motion to dismiss was granted in part and denied in part: it was denied as to D.J.’s education-related due-process claim against the individual County Defendants, education-related Americans with Disabilities Act claim against the County, and negligence claim concerning injuries from failure to provide an education against the County Defendants; it was granted as to all other claims. The court directed Plaintiffs to file the proposed Third Amended Complaint by April 7, 2021, and directed the remaining defendants to answer by May 7, 2021.