A. v. City of New York

Background

V.A. voluntarily placed her son, O.A., in the custody of the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) in 2016 so he could receive more intensive services for mental-health conditions and sexual trauma. O.A. was later placed with several foster-care agencies. In September 2020, ACS filed a neglect petition alleging, among other things, that V.A. failed to ensure O.A. took medication, threatened him with a bat, and refused to pick him up from a hospital. A family court temporarily removed O.A. from V.A.’s care. In April 2021, another family-court judge ordered O.A. returned to V.A.; the neglect proceeding was dismissed in May 2021.

The amended complaint asserted seven claims. Four federal claims against Naomi Cudjoe alleged federal malicious prosecution, interference with the right to intimate family association, substantive due-process violations, and denial of a fair trial. Three state-law claims alleged state malicious prosecution, negligence, and loss of services against various defendants. The City of New York and Cudjoe moved to dismiss the amended complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which tests whether a complaint states a legally sufficient claim. JBFCS separately moved to dismiss the claims against it and SCO’s cross-claims.

Federal claims

The court held that the family court’s temporary-removal order created a presumption that there was probable cause for the neglect proceeding. The complaint alleged that Cudjoe included false statements, but it did not provide specific facts showing that she knew the statements were false or that they conflicted with information available to her. The court therefore dismissed the federal malicious-prosecution claim.

The court analyzed the intimate-association claim under substantive due process rather than the First Amendment because it involved a family relationship and did not allege retaliation for protected speech or activity. The court held that the removal occurred under a family-court order supported by a reasonable basis, and that the allegations did not describe the extreme conduct needed for a substantive due-process violation. It dismissed both the intimate-association claim and the substantive-due-process claim.

The court also dismissed the fair-trial claim. The complaint alleged that Cudjoe failed to tell the family court that O.A. had behaved well without medication at one point. But the court concluded that this omission did not make Cudjoe’s other statements false, because O.A.’s temporary stability without medication did not establish that medication was unnecessary or that Cudjoe’s statement about JCCA’s determination was false.

The court separately held that Cudjoe was entitled to qualified immunity on all four federal claims. Qualified immunity generally protects government officials from damages when their conduct was objectively reasonable and did not violate clearly established law. The court found that the complaint did not plausibly allege that Cudjoe’s statements were inconsistent with the evidence available to her or that she committed the kind of extreme misstatement or fabricated evidence that would defeat that protection.

State-law claims and JBFCS’s motion

After dismissing all federal claims, the court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state-law claims. It dismissed Counts Three, Six, and Seven without prejudice. Those claims were state-law malicious prosecution, negligence, and loss of services.

Because the court declined jurisdiction over the state-law claims, it did not reach the merits of JBFCS’s motion to dismiss the negligence claim or SCO’s cross-claims. It denied JBFCS’s motion to dismiss as moot.

Disposition

The court granted the City Defendants’ motion to dismiss Counts One, Two, Four, and Five with prejudice. It dismissed Counts Three, Six, and Seven without prejudice, denied JBFCS’s motion to dismiss as moot, and directed the Clerk of Court to close the motions and the case.