City of New York v. Southerland

Issue: (1) Whether, assuming arguendo that a plaintiff can state a cognizable constitutional claim under either the Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment with respect to a child’s removal, the qualified immunity question as to a caseworker who removed a child in an investigation mandated by New York Social Services Law § 424 should be whether a reasonable jury could conclude that the child was not at imminent risk of harm or whether a reasonable caseworker in that particular caseworker’s position could have concluded that the child was; (2) whether, assuming arguendo that a plaintiff can state a cognizable constitutional claim under either the Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment with respect to a child’s removal, a caseworker is entitled to qualified immunity from suit where five judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit agree that there was an absence of clearly established statutory or constitutional rules of which the caseworker should have been aware when he secured a warrant to search a home and removed children at the direction of his superior; and (3) whether, after removing children from a home under the belief that they were abused, and, thereafter, a state court adjudicates a parent to have been so abusive of his children as to deny him further custody, the parent and the children can sue the caseworker who rescued children from further abuse on either substantive or procedural due process grounds.