Croft v. Westmoreland County Children and Youth Services,
103 F.3d 1123 (1997).


Facts: Dr. Henry L. Croft, Jr. and Carol Croft (Ps) are the parents and natural guardian of a four-year-old daughter. Westmoreland County Children and Youth Services ("WCCYS") received an anonymous call via Childline that Dr. Croft was sexually abusing his daughter and reported a specific incident. WCCYS' employee, Carla Danovsky, accompanied by a state trooper, went to Ps' home. Ms. Danovsky interviewed Ps and the child. Mrs. Croft and the child confirmed Dr. Croft's version of the incident. Ms. Danovsky gave Dr. Croft an ultimatum to leave the house and have no further contact with the child or the child would be removed from the house. Dr. Croft left. Ps filed a complaint against WCCYS, Ms. Danovsky, and Westmoreland County (Ds) on the ground that Ds had impermissibly interfered with Ps' Fourteenth Amendment liberty interest in the companionship of their daughter. Ds filed motions to dismiss the complaint, which was considered motions for summary judgment since discovery was completed. The court granted the summary judgment motions on the grounds that Ms. Danovsky was entitled to qualified immunity and the county and WCCYS were entitled to municipal immunity. Ps appeal the judgment against WCCYS and the county.

Issue: Did the trial court err in granting summary judgments to Ds when Ds had no reasonable and articulable evidence giving rise to a reasonable suspi¬cion that the child had been abused or was in imminent danger of abuse, except for an anonymous tip?

Rule: In order to remove a parent from a home for suspected child abuse the state must have some reasonable and articulable evidence giving rise to a reasonable
suspicion that a child has been abused or is in imminent danger of abuse.

Holding: Yes. Judgment reversed and remanded.
The United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Ila Jeanne Sensenich, J., granted summary judgment in favor of agency, county, and caseworker. Parents appealed. The Court of Appeals, Nygaard, Circuit Judge, held that caseworker's ultimatum to father that child would be removed from home immediately and placed in foster care unless he left his home and had no contact with child was arbitrary abuse of government power and impermissibly interfered with parents' constitutional right to familial integrity.

Analysis:Defendants, county youth services and an investigator, received an anonymous phone call regarding the possible sexual abuse of a child by plaintiffs, mother and father. Plaintiff father was ordered out of the home based on this anonymous tip. Plaintiffs filed a complaint alleging that defendants had impermissibly interfered with their U.S. Const. amend. XIV liberty interest in the companionship of their daughter. The court reversed the district court's entry of summary judgment because defendant investigator abused her government power in ordering plaintiff father from the house based on her lack of an opinion regarding whether sexual abuse had actually occurred. The court found that defendant investigator lacked objectively reasonable grounds to believe that the child had been sexually abused. The court found that plaintiffs confirmed that an incident bearing only the barest resemblance to the anonymous tip had happened and plaintiffs' statements raised serious questions about the veracity of the informant. Furthermore, defendant investigator testified that she did not have enough information to make a determination and further investigation was required.