US Court of Appeals: Social Workers Have No Absolute Immunity

This is BIG news. A quote from the Court Appeals decision just published days ago: "Furthermore, as prosecutors and others investigating criminal matters have no absolute immunity for their investigatory conduct, a fortiori, social workers conducting investigations have no such immunity. "

(fortiori: adverb with greater reason; for a still stronger, more certain reason; "if you are wrong then, a fortiori, so am I" )

I have the full document that I will get appended to this or a link. I just wanted to get it out, thus just this abbreviated 'teaser':

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

LORI BELTRAN; ROBERT BELTRAN; COBY BELTRAN, by and through his Guardian Ad Litem Lori Beltran,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

SANTA CLARA COUNTY; MELISSA No. 05-16976

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California Ronald M. Whyte, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

December 12, 2007—Pasadena, California

Filed January 24, 2008

Before: Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge, Stephen Reinhardt, Andrew J. Kleinfeld, Michael Daly Hawkins,

Kim McLane Wardlaw, William A. Fletcher,Ronald M. Gould, Richard A. Paez, Marsha S. Berzon,

Richard R. Clifton and Sandra S. Ikuta, Circuit Judges.

COUNSEL

Robert R. Powell and Dennis R. Ingols, The Law Offices of

Robert R. Powell, San Jose, California, for the plaintiffs-appellants.

Melissa R. Kiniyalocts, Deputy County Counsel, and Ann Miller-Ravel, County Counsel, Santa Clara County, San Jose, California, for the defendants-appellees.

"We reverse the district court’s ruling that defendants are entitled to absolute immunity and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion."

REVERSED AND REMANDED.

BELTRAN v. SANTA CLARA 1205