Robyn C. Crowther

An 11-month-old boy slipped from his mother's arms as she tripped descending the steps from the loft of her Santa Monica condominium. The nightmare that followed -- the boy was taken by authorities from his parents, who were wrongly accused of child abuse -- led Crowther to win a favorable judgment for the parents last fall from a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel.

Both parents are lawyers, Crowther said, adding, "The case was referred to our office by another lawyer who knows the dad. A lot of us in the office have kids, and we got emotionally involved. It was the idea of young parents struggling to heal after an accident, and the guilt and shame they felt at being accused of child abuse. We were offended by the county's disregard of their constitutional rights in removing the child."

The boy had a skull fracture and broken ribs that did not at first show up on X-rays. When a follow-up exam did reveal the fractured ribs, a child abuse specialist physician, Claudia Wang, called police, kept the child at the hospital and termed the child's injuries "highly suspicious."

A Los Angeles County Department of Child and Family Services social worker then removed the boy from his parents' custody for nearly three months, until a juvenile court commissioner determined he had not been abused and the parents posed no risk. "It was just a terrible situation," Crowther said. She filed a lawsuit on the parents' behalf for federal and state constitutional violations as well as state law tort claims against Wang and the county. U.S. District Judge S. James Otero of Los Angeles denied Wang's summary judgment motion, and the circuit panel affirmed the doctor was not guaranteed qualified immunity at the summary judgment stage, returning the case for trial.

The doctor is seeking en banc review. Oral argument is set for June 6, but the case is essentially on ice while the circuit ponders en banc review of a prior case with similar facts. "Our clients wanted to bring this case because we knew the child and family services department had a practice of not seeking a warrant before removing a child from its parents' custody," she said. "Our research showed that was a wrongful practice under 9th Circuit case law. We hear the department has taken some steps to remedy that. So we have effected change, but we still want a trial."

Whichever way the circuit rules in the en banc proceedings, there will likely be further appeals, Crowther noted "Qualified immunity has been an issue the Supreme Court is interested in, so there will likely be a cert petition," she said. "My prediction: this child will argue his own case before the Supreme Court some day."

John Roemer