MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
In this action, which arises under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and New York state law, plaintiff Kia P. (“Kia”) claims that she was unconstitutionally deprived of the custody of her daughter Mora P. (“Mora”)
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shortly after her birth at Long Island College Hospital (“Hospital”) in 1993, when the Hospital, allegedly pursuant to directions from employees of the City of New York (“City”), held Mora for ten days pending its receipt of the results of a toxicology screen of the baby’s urine. Kia alleges that the City and its employees have implemented a policy of re
BACKGROUND
The Court’s recitation of the facts is drawn from the Statements of Undisputed Facts submitted by the parties pursuant to Local Rule 56.1 (formerly Local Rule 3(g)) and the documentary evidence contained in their motion papers. Unless otherwise indicated, the facts are undisputed.
On March 27, 1993, Kia went to the Hospital in labor, and Mora was born later that day. Kia had received prenatal care through a program at North Central Bronx Hospital. Kia informed Hospital personnel upon admission that she was HIV positive. Kia alleges that she was treated discourteously as a result of her HIV status.
Shortly after Mora’s birth, the Hospital took a sample of Mora’s urine, which tested positive for methadone. On March 29, 1993, defendant Morance, a Hospital social worker, informed Kia of the positive test results. Kia denied having taken methadone during her pregnancy. As was its practice, the Hospital thereupon sent Mora’s urine sample to an outside laboratory for confirmatory testing. The record reflects it was very rare” for confirmatory tests to fail to detect the presence of drugs in a urine sample. Reply Declaration of Steven Friedman at Exh. “A.” Kia was released from the Hospital on March 29, 1993. However, the Hospital continued to hold Mora pending the anticipated urine test confirmation. Moreover, there is undisputed evidence in the record that an infant’s methadone withdrawal can take a minimum of one week to manifest itself. Hospital records indicate that Mora exhibited tremors and irritability, which are symptoms consistent with methadone withdrawal.
Also on March 29, 1993, Morance reported the positive urine toxicology screen to the New York State Central Register of Child Abuse and Maltreatment (“Central Register”), which in turn notified the Child Welfare Administration (“CWA”). Defendant McIntyre was the caseworker assigned by CWA to investigate the matter. On March 30, 1993, she visited Kia’s home in Brooklyn and interviewed Kia and her husband, Edwin, since deceased. Kia denied having used drugs during her pregnancy or having participated in a methadone program, although she admitted to having habitually used crack cocaine, but not during the past two years. Edwin similarly denied having used any illegal drugs for the past two years. McIntyre kept in contact with the Hospital, telephoning Morance on March 31,1993 to inform her that Kia had adamantly denied using drugs during her pregnancy. Morance advised McIntyre that the baby’s urine sample had been sent out for confirmatory testing, and that the results were expected by April 5, 1993. Defendant Delamothe, one of McIntyre’s supervisors, denied that CWA ever told the Hospital to place a “hold” on Mora’s release. However, Cyprian Belle, a deputy director of the City’s Agency for Children’s Services, testified at his examination before trial that CWA had a policy in 1993 that a child who was the subject of a pending CWA investigation could not be released from a hospital until CWA gave its permission.
The confirmatory testing of Mora’s urine was delayed because SmithKline Beecham, the laboratory to which the sample was initially sent, was unable to complete the
Ultimately, National Medical Services reported that it could not confirm the presence of methadone in the baby’s urine. There is some dispute in the record as to whether the Hospital received these tests results on April 6 or 7, 1993. In any event, Mora’s doctors cleared her for discharge on April 7, 1993, and this information was forthwith communicated to Morance. Morance promptly contacted McIntyre to advise her that Mora had been medically cleared for discharge. CWA determined that it did not intend to take any action in respect to Mora’s case, and this information was communicated to the Hospital on April 8, 1993. Mora was discharged from the Hospital on that day. By letter dated June 5, 1993, the State Department of Social Services advised Kia that no credible evidence had been found that Mora had been abused or maltreated, and all identifying information was expunged from the Central Register. This action followed.
Plaintiffs’ complaint invokes all of the provisions of the Constitution which arguably impact upon the separation of a child from the custody and care of a parent, as well as related New York State law provisions. They are contained in seven claims: first, that defendants City, Sabol, as Commissioner of the City’s Department of Social Services, Little, as Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Social Services and the Director of the CWA, and the Hospital had a policy of detaining children without due process of law or probable cause, and that defendants McIntyre, Delamothe and Morance removed Mora from Kia’s custody pursuant to this policy in violation of plaintiffs’ rights under the Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution; 2 second, that defendants conducted a constitutionally inadequate investigation of the charges against Kia and that the removal of Mora from Kia’s custody was based upon this inadequate investigation; third, that defendants failed to provide services mandated by New York State law to reunite Kia and Mora; fourth, that defendants unlawfully interfered with Kia’s custody of Mora; fifth, that defendants unlawfully imprisoned Mora; sixth, that defendants’ inadequate investigation of the charges against Kia constituted a gross breach of duty and a gross deviation from accepted professional standards; and seventh, that defendants discriminated against Kia because of her HIV status.
The City defendants contend that: (1) they did not violate plaintiffs’ due process rights; (2) plaintiffs had no constitutional right to an adequate investigation; (3) plaintiffs’ claim that the City defendants failed to provide statutorily-mandated preventive services fails to state a claim for which relief may be granted; (4) plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate the existence of a municipal policy, practice or custom; (5) the individual City defendants are immune from liability based upon the law of qualified immunity; and (6) the Court should decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claims.
The Hospital defendants contend that: (1) the Hospital is not a state actor for purposes of liability under § 1983; (2) plaintiffs have no constitutional right to an adequate child abuse investigation; (3) the state law claims should be dismissed; and (4) the seventh claim for relief, based upon unlawful discrimination, should be dismissed based upon plaintiffs’ failure to offer any factual basis for this claim.
DISCUSSION
I. Standard on a Motion for Summary Judgment
A motion for summary judgment may not be granted unless the court determines that there is no genuine issue of material fact to be tried and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R.Civ.P. 56(c);
see also Celotex Corp. v. Catrett,
II. 42 U.S.C. § 1983
It is well established that the elements of a claim under § 1983 are: (1) that the conduct in question deprived a person of rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States; and (2) that the conduct complained of was committed by a person acting under color of state law.
See Gomez v. Toledo,
Because “[sjection 1983 ‘is not itself a source of substantive rights,’ but merely provides ‘a method for vindicating federal rights elsewhere conferred[,]’ ... [t]he first step in any such claim is to identify the specific constitutional right allegedly infringed.”
Albright v. Oliver,
A. Are the Hospital Defendants “State Actors”?
There is some support for the Hospital’s contention that a hospital providing medical services is ordinarily not a state actor under § 1983, even when the action at issue is the hospital’s notification to govern
[C]onduct which is formally “private” may become so entwined with governmental policies or so impregnated with a governmental character as to become subject to the constitutional limitations placed upon state action .... In certain instances the actions of private entities may be considered to be infused with “state action” if those private parties are performing a function public or governmental in nature and which would have to be performed by the Government but for the activities of the private parties.
Perez,
The Court agrees with the Hospital that insofar as its employees provided medical care to Mora during her hospitalization, it did not engage in state action that would subject it to liability under § 1983. However, the Hospital did more than simply treat Mora. Morance testified at her examination before trial that once a case has been referred to CWA, the Hospital will not release a child, even if he or she has been medically cleared for release, without the prior approval of CWA. Morance’s testimony is corroborated by the Hospital’s Policy and Procedure Manual, which provides, in pertinent part, that if the Central Register accepts a case and refers it to the local CWA office, as here, “the [Hospital] social worker will so document in the chart and the child will be admitted and held pending the outcome of the local CWA’s field unit’s investigation.” Plaintiffs’ Answering Submissions at Exh. “C.” Finally, as noted above, CWA apparently had a policy in 1993 that it had to approve a child’s release from a hospital if the child was the subject of an ongoing investigation. It is apparent, therefore, that in 1993, the Hospital had implemented a policy of holding children who were the subject of child abuse investigations, even if there was no medical reason for doing so, until it received notification from the CWA that its investigation was complete. Under those circumstances, the Court determines that the Hospital and its employees were performing a function that was essentially public in nature. But for the actions of the Hospital in holding Mora, the CWA presumably would have needed to take some action to detain the child pending completion of its investigation or would have needed to determine on an expedited basis whether she should have been released to Kia. Accordingly, the Court determines that the Hospital’s practices in this regard were sufficiently “entwined” with City policy to warrant its being treated as a state actor for purposes of this action.
See Perez,
B. Have the Plaintiffs’ Constitutional Rights Been Violated?
Plaintiffs specifically invoke the Constitution in respect to their first, second, and seventh claims. In their first claim, plaintiffs claim that defendants infringed their rights to substantive and procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment and Mora’s right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment. In their second claim, plaintiffs assert that defendants violated their alleged constitutionally-protected right to an adequate child abuse investigation. In plaintiffs’ seventh claim, they allege that defendants discriminated against them because of Kia’s HIV status, in violation of the Equal
As a preface to the Court’s treatment of plaintiffs’ Fourteenth Amendment substantive and procedural due process claims and their Fourth Amendment search and seizure claims, it is conceptually important to recognize that they are all triggered by the liberty interests implicated whenever the state intrudes upon “the most essential and basic aspect of familial privacy — the right of the family to remain together without the coercive interference of the awesome power of the state.”
Duchesne v. Sugarman,
1. Due Process
a. Substantive Due Process
While the Supreme Court has recently explained that “ ‘[a]s a general matter ... [it] has always been reluctant to expand the concept of substantive due process because the guideposts for responsible decisionmak-ing in this unchartered area are scarce and open-ended,’ ” it has, nonetheless, steadfastly recognized that “[t]he protections of substantive due process have ... been accorded to matters relating to marriage, family, procreation and the right to bodily integrity.”
Albright,
“Substantive due process protects against government action that is arbitrary, conscience-shocking, or oppressive in a constitutional sense, but not against government action that is ‘incorrect or ill-advised.’ ”
Kaluczky v. City of White Plains,
The Court determines, as a matter of law, that plaintiffs’ rights were not “significantly infringed” by the defendants’ actions. CWA took no formal action to take custody of Mora from Kia. Rather, the nature of the limitation upon Kia and Mora’s rights was limited to a “hold” on Mora’s discharge pending an anticipated confirmation of the toxicology results and the sensible need to observe Mora for withdrawal symptoms. Notably, Kia was permitted to visit with Mora for the duration of Mora’s hospitalization, including feeding times. Moreover, and most significantly, the results of the initial toxicology screen, taken together with Kia’s history of substance abuse, gave the Hospital and CWA a reasonable basis to believe that Mora was in danger of abuse or neglect, and clearly justified their limited actions. Plaintiffs’ argument that the screening test used by the Hospital was not “state of the art” does not in any way compel the conclusion that the defendants’ fears for Mora’s health and welfare were not reasonable. Although it is uneontested that the GCMS testing used by the outside laboratories was more accurate, there is, as noted above, uneontested evidence in the record that the Hospital routinely sent samples for confirmation whenever the mother denied having used drugs during pregnancy, and that, even in 1993 when the test at issue was administered, it was very rare for urine tests sent to outside laboratories for confirmation not to come back positive.
As the Second Circuit aptly observed in
van Emrik v. Chemung County Dep’t of Social Servs.,
Though a decision to remove a child from parental custody implicates the constitutional rights of the parents, it obliges protective services caseworkers to choose between difficult alternatives in the context of suspected child abuse. If they err in interrupting parental custody, they may be accused of infringing the parents’ constitutional rights. If they err in not removing the child, they risk injury to the child and may be accused of infringing the child’s rights.
Given the delicacy of this balance, the Court concludes that the limited nature of the infringement upon plaintiffs’ respective familial rights did not amount to a denial of substantive due process under the three-part test used by the Second Circuit in
Joyner
and the concept of “objective reasonableness” articulated by the Circuit in
Gottlieb. See also Deckon,
b. Procedural Due Process
The liberty interests of parent and child in continued care and companionship has both procedural as well as substantive elements,
van Emrik,
The focus of the procedural due process inquiry in this case is whether Kia was entitled to a hearing regarding the Hospital’s decision to hold Mora pending the results of the anticipated confirmatory toxicology screen. As to whether a
pre-d&privation
hearing was required, the Court notes that while “[a] parent may not lawfully be deprived of the custody of his or her child without a hearing ‘at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner,’ ”
Gottlieb,
The Court concludes that the results of the positive toxicology screen gave defendants an adequate emergency basis for detaining Mora since the initial results provided an objective basis for the Hospital’s concern that Mora had been exposed to drugs
in útero.
Accordingly, the Court determines that no pre-deprivation hearing was required. Having reached this conclusion, the question that remains is whether plaintiffs’ procedural due process rights were violated by the Hospital’s failure to conduct a hearing after it determined to detain the child. Although plaintiffs argue in this regard that defendants should have complied with New York State requirements regarding the removal of children on an emergency basis,
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the Second Circuit has held that a violation of state law, even if proved, does not give rise to a § 1983 claim since it is wholly separate from the issue of whether the defendants violated plaintiffs’ procedural due process rights under the United States Constitution.
See Doe v. Connecticut Dep’t of Child and Youth Servs.,
The Court therefore turns to federal authority mapping out the contours of procedural due process. The Supreme Court has long held that three separate factors enter into a determination as to the procedural protections the Constitution requires in a given case: first, “the private interest ... affected by the official action”; second, “the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest ... and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards”; and third, the government’s interest.
See Zinermon v. Burch,
On balance, the Court concludes, as a matter of law, that plaintiffs’ post-deprivation procedural due process rights were not infringed, primarily because it was rational to hold Mora on a day-by-day basis pending the receipt of the anticipated confirmatory test results. As it turned out, no hearing was ever held because Mora was released to Kia’s
2. Fourth Amendment
The Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures is the quintessential safeguard of one’s liberty.
See, e.g., Albright,
Preliminarily, it is clear that Kia does not have standing to assert a derivative or vicarious Fourth Amendment claim based upon defendants’ search or seizure of Mora, but she does have standing to assert a Fourth Amendment claim on Mora’s behalf.
See Tenenbaum,
In respect to the Hospital’s decision to administer the urine test, although the Fourth Amendment is triggered when state authorities have children undergo medical procedures for investigative purposes,
see van Emrik,
The Court now turns to the question of whether the “hold” placed on Mora’s release constituted a Fourth Amendment “seizure.” The Second Circuit has indicated that an individual is seized if, under the circumstances presented, “ ‘a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave.’ ”
Gardiner v. Incorporated Village of Endicott,
In determining the reasonableness of a seizure, “the Fourth Amendment requires a careful balancing of ‘the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests’ against the countervailing governmental interests at stake.’”
Graham v. Connor,
As the Court has already discussed in respect to plaintiffs’ due process claims, the governmental interest in protecting children from the effects of child abuse, including prenatal exposure to drugs, is an exceedingly strong one,
see, e.g., Deckon,
S. Right to an Adequate Child Abuse Investigation
In their second claim, plaintiffs contend that their right to an adequate child abuse investigation was violated by the defendants’ actions. As the district court noted in
Tenenbaum,
the Constitution does not grant plaintiffs such an independent right; rather, allegations of inadequate investigation invoke plaintiffs’ right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Tenenbaum,
Jh HIV Discrimination
In their seventh claim, plaintiffs allege that Mora was removed from Kia’s care because of her positive HIV status in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In her affidavit in opposition to defendants’ motions, Kia claims that Hospital employees treated her contemptuously because she was HIV positive, expressed an unwillingness to give her anesthesia, left her alone for extended periods of time, and did not tend to her medical needs following Mora’s delivery. However, there are no factual allegations whatsoever offered in support of plaintiffs’ claim that Mora’s detention in the Hospital had anything to do with Kia’s HIV status. Nor is there any factual support offered to substantiate plaintiffs’ allegations that the City defendants discriminated against Kia based upon her HIV status. Conclusory allegations of discrimination are insufficient to defeat a motion for summary judgment.
See Finnegan v. Board of Educ. of the Enlarged City Sch. Dist. of Troy,
In conclusion, the Court determines that none of the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights were violated by the defendants’ actions. Moreover, contrary to plaintiffs’ arguments in opposition to defendants’ summary judgment motions, there are no material issues of fact that would preclude the Court from awarding judgment as a matter of law dismissing all of plaintiffs’ federal claims. The factual issues identified by plaintiffs — whether Kia was an unfit mother, whether she was administered a drug during labor that could have affected the results of the urine screen, whether Mora was held for medical or “social” reasons, or both, and others — do not affect the availability of summary judgment because even if resolved in plaintiffs’ favor for purposes of these motions, they do not give rise to questions of fact that require a trial of plaintiffs’ constitutional claims.
C. Are the individual City Defendants otherwise immune from suit?
In addition to concluding that plaintiffs’ constitutional rights were not violated, the
1. Personal Involvement
City Defendants Sabol and Little are sued individually as well as in their official capacities. Plaintiffs allege that Sabol and Little, in their roles as policymakers for the City Department of Social Services and CWA, respectively, created the City policies under which the constitutional violations allegedly at issue in this case occurred. Insofar as plaintiffs sue these defendants individually, it is well-settled that a defendant’s personal involvement in an alleged constitutional violation is a prerequisite to the imposition of damages under § 1983.
See Al-Jundi v. Estate of Rockefeller,
2. Qualified Immunity
The Court also concludes that the actions of Delamothe and McIntyre, the individual City defendants who are alleged to have participated directly in the detention of Mora, fall within the scope of the qualified immunity doctrine.
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Qualified immunity “generally shields governmental officials from liability for damages on account of their performance of discretionary official functions ‘insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.’”
McEvoy v. Spencer,
“Objective reasonableness” is the linchpin of the qualified immunity analysis embraced by the Supreme Court and the Second Circuit. Indeed, the Second Circuit has specifically noted that in qualified immunity cases, “we are not concerned about the correctness of the defendants’ conduct, but rather the ‘objective reasonableness’ of their chosen course of action given the circumstances confronting them at the scene.”
Lennon,
The law is clear that the question of whether a reasonable officer should have known that he or she acted unlawfully is a question for the Court and not for the jury, and is properly resolved on a motion for summary judgment.
See Hunter v. Bryant,
the asserted rights were not clearly established, or if the evidence is such that, even when it is viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs and with all permissible inferences drawn in their favor, no rational jury could fail to conclude that it was objectively reasonable for the defendants to believe that they were acting in a fashion that did not violate a clearly established right.
Davidson,
In this case, McIntyre, as supervised by defendant Delamothe, is alleged to have participated in Mora’s detention. Specifically, it is alleged that even after Mora was medically cleared for discharge, she was held at the behest of McIntyre until the CWA could determine whether it would be taking any action against Kia. Again, plaintiffs point out that CWA apparently had a policy that children who were the subject of ongoing child abuse investigations were not to be released from hospitals without CWA permission.
As noted above, both Kia and Mora had clearly established constitutionally protected liberty interests under both the Fourteenth and Fourth Amendments. However, as is clear from the foregoing discussion of plaintiffs’ constitutional claims, the Court concludes that defendants Delamothe and McIntyre, the only City defendants alleged to have participated directly in the CWA’s handling of Mora’s case, acted objectively reasonably, and that they are consequently immune from personal liability under § 1983. Their actions were based upon the objective findings of a laboratory test, which, once disputed, were immediately sent to an outside laboratory for anticipated confirmation. McIntyre made a prompt visit to Kia’s house and interviewed Kia and her husband. Upon completion of the interview, she contacted Morance to inform her that Kia had vehemently denied taking drugs during her pregnancy. Once the unexpected non-confirmatory results were received, McIntyre and Delamothe promptly decided that CWA was not going to pursue an investigation of the child abuse charges against Kia, and so notified the Hospital. As the Second Circuit noted in
Defore v. Premore,
We can well understand the distress of the parents that their child was in the custody of public officials on the basis of ... allegations that were ultimately determined to be unfounded. But the proper means to challenge such assertions of public authority are by recourse to state courts to test continued public custody, not to seek to hold publicly employed caseworkers liable for damages.
Thus, in light of the compelling nature of the government’s interest in the prevention of child abuse, the Court determines that the actions of Delamothe and McIntyre were both reasonable and appropriate, and that “no rational jury could fail to conclude that it was objectively reasonable for [them] to believe that they were acting in a fashion that did not violate a clearly established right.”
Davidson,
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the Court grants defendants’ motions for summary judgment in respect to all of plaintiffs’ ex
Accordingly, the Court dismisses plaintiffs’ complaint in its entirety.
SO ORDERED.
Notes
. Plaintiff Mora P. is also referred to as "Moriah P." in certain of the submissions before the Court. In the absence of any definitive statement regarding the correct spelling of her first name, the Court will refer to her by the name chosen for the caption of this lawsuit.
. The Fifth Amendment applies only to the federal government; therefore, allegations of “federal action” Eire required to state a claim for deprivation of due process in violation of the Fifth Amendment.
See Flowers v. Webb,
. Specifically, plaintiffs cite the New York Family Court Act § 1026(c), which relates to emergency removal of a child from his or her home, and provides that when the City removes a child on an emergency basis, it is required to commence court proceedings "forthwith.” Plaintiffs also cite to New York Social Services Law § 417, entitled “Taking a child into protective custody.” Section 417(2) provides, in pertinent part, that "the person in charge of any hospital ... shall, where he has reasonable cause to believe that the circumstances or conditions of the child are such that continuing in his place of residence or in the care and custody of the parent, guardian, custodian or other person responsible for the child's care presents an imminent danger to the child's life or health, take all necessary measures to protect the child including, where appropriate, retaining custody of an abused or maltreated child, until the next regular week day session of the family court in which a child protection proceeding pursuant to article ten of the family court act may be commenced ...."
. Although not explicitly addressed by the parties, any perceived § 1983 claim against the Hospital based upon the medical care it rendered Kia would be subject to dismissal since, as the Court has already noted, a hospital providing medical services is not, without more, a state actor under § 1983.
See Deckon,
. Qualified immunity is an affirmative defense to a § 1983 action that must be pleaded by the defendants.
See Gomez,