Mitchell O/B/O X.M. v. Dakota Cnty. Soc. Servs.

357 F. Supp. 3d 891
CourtDistrict Court, D. Maine
DecidedJanuary 28, 2019
DocketCase No. 18-cv-1091 (WMW/BRT)
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 357 F. Supp. 3d 891 (Mitchell O/B/O X.M. v. Dakota Cnty. Soc. Servs.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Maine primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mitchell O/B/O X.M. v. Dakota Cnty. Soc. Servs., 357 F. Supp. 3d 891 (D. Me. 2019).

Opinion

Wilhelmina M. Wright, United States District Judge

In this dispute arising from Defendants' temporary removal of Plaintiff Dwight D. Mitchell's children from his custody, Defendants move to dismiss Plaintiffs' 25-count amended complaint. (Dkts. 15, 24.) For the reasons addressed below, the Court grants Defendants' motions to dismiss.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs are New Jersey residents Mitchell and his three children, X.M., A.M., and B.M. (collectively, the individual plaintiffs) and Stop Child Protection Services from Legally Kidnapping (SCPS), an association of parents who have been affected by Minnesota's child-protection services. The individual plaintiffs, along with Mitchell's then-wife Tatiana Litvinenko and her child, M.L., lived in Minnesota fromat least February 2014 to July 2014. Defendants are Dakota County, Dakota County Social Services (DCSS), nine Dakota County officials, and three State of Minnesota officials.

Plaintiffs' claims arise from a February 16, 2014 incident in which police responded to a call from the Mitchell family's babysitter. The babysitter relayed to police X.M.'s allegations that Mitchell had inflicted corporal punishment on him. Police took the children from their home to the police station for questioning, where both X.M. and A.M. alleged that Mitchell had spanked them on prior occasions. County officials also reached out to Eva Campos, Mitchell's ex-wife and the biological mother of X.M., A.M., and B.M.1

*897Campos alleged that Mitchell had abused the children, and she encouraged officials to pursue legal action against Mitchell in Minnesota, instead of in the children's home state of New Jersey. In response to Campos's allegations, DCSS removed X.M., A.M., and B.M. from Mitchell's custody.2

Defendant Susan Boreland subsequently commenced a Child in Need of Protection or Services (CHIPS) proceeding.3 Mitchell accepted service of the CHIPS petition and attended an emergency protective hearing on February 26, 2014. In May 2014, Mitchell entered an Alford plea4 in response to a criminal charge for malicious punishment of a child. At a July 10, 2014 settlement conference for the CHIPS proceeding, Mitchell agreed to a court order prohibiting him from using corporal punishment in exchange for regaining physical custody of A.M. and B.M. On July 21, 2014, Mitchell and his family returned to New Jersey without X.M. On December 4, 2015, the state court dismissed the CHIPS petition against Mitchell. The following day, DCSS returned X.M. to Mitchell's custody.

Plaintiffs allege numerous instances of misconduct by Defendants between February 2014 and December 2015. Plaintiffs allege that Defendants were unlawfully motivated to separate Mitchell from his children, conspired to transfer custody to Mitchell's ex-wife, and made racially disparaging comments during their interactions with Mitchell.5 Plaintiffs also allege that Defendants forced Litvinenko to move out of Mitchell's Minnesota house during the CHIPS proceeding, threatening that Litvinenko would lose custody of her child, M.L., if she did not leave. Finally, according to Plaintiffs, Defendants submitted unreliable accusations to the Minnesota court in the CHIPS proceeding and concealed a court order indicating that New Jersey-not Minnesota-was the proper jurisdiction for the CHIPS proceeding.

In the present action, Plaintiffs' amended complaint alleges 25 counts against Defendants, including constitutional, federal, and state law claims. Counts 1 through 6, advanced by all plaintiffs, allege that several Minnesota child-protection statutes are facially unconstitutional because they are void for vagueness and violate the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the United States Constitution.6 The remaining 19 counts are advanced only by the individual plaintiffs. Counts 7 through 12 allege that the same Minnesota child-protection statutes challenged in Counts 1 through 6 are unconstitutional as applied to the individual plaintiffs. Counts 13 and *89814 allege that Dakota County's policies caused civil rights violations. Counts 15 through 17 allege that state and county officials engaged in conspiracies to terminate Mitchell's parental rights. Counts 18 through 24 are state law claims, alleging intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, malicious prosecution, abuse of process, and false imprisonment. Count 25 is a request for declaratory relief against Dakota County.

ANALYSIS

Defendants move to dismiss the amended complaint under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). A defendant may challenge the plaintiff's complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction either on its face or on the factual truthfulness of its averments. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1) ; see, e.g., Titus v. Sullivan , 4 F.3d 590, 593 (8th Cir. 1993). Here, Defendants assert a facial challenge to subject-matter jurisdiction.7 In a facial challenge, the nonmoving party "receives the same protections as it would defending against a motion brought under Rule 12(b)(6)." Osborn v. United States , 918 F.2d 724, 729 n.6 (8th Cir. 1990).

A complaint must be dismissed if it fails to state a claim on which relief can be granted. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the complaint must allege sufficient facts that, when accepted as true, state a facially plausible claim to relief. Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009). When determining whether the complaint states such a claim, a district court accepts as true all factual allegations in the complaint and draws all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's favor. Blankenship v. USA Truck, Inc. , 601 F.3d 852, 853 (8th Cir. 2010). The factual allegations need not be detailed, but they must be sufficient to "raise a right to relief above the speculative level" and "state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
357 F. Supp. 3d 891, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mitchell-obo-xm-v-dakota-cnty-soc-servs-med-2019.