January 11, 2002

Social Workers do not have Qualified Immunity for Placing Children in Abusive Foster Home

Missouri, Federal Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit

Burton v. Richmond

While they were children, the Plaintiffs allege that six social workers from the Missouri Division of Family Services (“DFS”) improperly removed from their mother’s care and placed in an abusive foster home with a known sex offender and murder. The Plaintiffs were removed from their mother’s care, apparently without a hearing, after she left them with a friend while looking for a place to live. 

DFS then placed them in a home with a man who had been convicted of numerous felonies, including sexual assault, rape, and murder. While in his home, the four children allege that they were severely abused and neglected. They allege no supervision was performed during the placement despite numerous specific complaints, and they were not removed from the placement for months despite knowledge of their foster father’s violent criminal history.

The Defendants, six social workers from the Missouri Division of Family Services (“DFS”), argued that they should be immune from liability as at the time of the placement in 1985, the law was not clearly established that state caseworkers had a duty to protect these children. 

The Appeals Court refused to dismiss the claim, noting that the purpose of qualified immunity is to ensure the government is not so overwhelmed by trivial claims of negligence that it is unable to function. 

According to the court, this case is the classic case where immunity “should not and does not apply.” 

The Court noted that the Plaintiffs’ allegations, if proven, could demonstrate that the social workers showed grossly deliberate indifference to the Plaintiffs’ welfare and that DFS “transgresse[d] the substantive limits on state action set by the Eighth Amendment and the Due Process Clause.”

To read the full text of this opinion, go to: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/8th/011323P.pdf