In Gabrielle A. v. County of Orange, published on April 19, 2017, the Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division 3, affirmed summary judgment in favor of the County of Orange and a group of social workers in a lawsuit brought by two parents on a variety of causes of action arising from the detention of a newborn child and a two-year-old child for six months. The children were originally taken from the mother, who gave birth in Orange County while visiting from Los Angeles County without her husband, because the mother was allegedly acting irrationally and aggressively after the birth. The parents pleaded no contest to a Welfare & Institutions Code section 300 order making the children dependents of the juvenile court.
The appellate court held that the record established that the parents entered into the no-contest plea knowingly. The no-contest plea removed the premise of the parents' claims that the children were wrongfully detained, removed, and subjected to the juvenile court's jurisdiction due to the alleged misconduct of the social workers. Further, the social workers and the county were entitled to statutory immunity. Government Code section 820.2, the discretionary immunity, covers social workers for child placement decisions; and under Government Code section 815.2, the county shares the immunity. The exception to the immunity under Government Code section 820.21 for social workers who commit perjury, fabricate evidence, or fail to disclose exculpatory evidence did not apply, because the parents' evidence did not raise a triable issue of material fact on whether the social workers acted with malice. The causes of action for negligent supervision, hiring and retention failed because the nonstatutory causes of action could not be asserted against the county, and the parents failed to raise a triable issue of fact on whether any of the individual defendants could be held liable for those causes of action. The causes of action under the Bane Act, Unruh Act, and Ralph Act failed because there was no evidence of violence, threat of violence, or discrimination.
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