Melendez- Spencer v. Gloria Shack

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

___________

No. 17-2035

___________

SHURANDA SHA’KAARII MELENDEZ-SPENCER; and

A’SIERRA GIIANNA SPENCER

v.

GLORIA SHACK; MIGDALIA DIAZ; JOYCE SMITH;

GLORIA CAMERON-WALTON; EILEEN CRUMMY; MANAGERIAL DOES;

SUPERVISORY DOES; CARLOS NOVOA; SEBASTIAN ANTHONY;

REGINA TROUTMAN; CHRISTIAN ARNOLD; LINDA HIGGINS;

JEAN LOUIS-HANSY; ALLISON BLAKE; THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DIVISION OF YOUTH AND FAMILY SERVICES, conducting its business as DYFS;

DCF; VALERIE TALMADGE; and MR. & MRS. DONALD COWAN

Shuranda Sha’Kaarii Melendez-Spencer,

Appellant

____________________________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of New Jersey

(D.N.J. Civ. No. 2-12-cv-01925)

District Judge: Honorable Jose L. Linares

____________________________________

Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)

July 23, 2018

Before: JORDAN, RESTREPO, and SCIRICA, Circuit Judges

(Opinion filed: August 27, 2018)

___________

OPINION *

___________

PER CURIAM

This is a pro se civil rights action filed in March 2012, by Shuranda Melendez-

Spencer and her then-minor daughter, A’Sierra (together, “Plaintiffs”). Plaintiffs sued

New Jersey’s child welfare agency (“DCF”) and several state employees (collectively,

“Defendants”), alleging that A’Sierra was removed from her mother’s care in 2003 based

on unfounded complaints of abuse and neglect. Plaintiffs also alleged that while A’Sierra

was under Defendants’ supervision she suffered horrific acts of physical and sexual abuse

at various living arrangements. Generally speaking, Plaintiffs attributed A’Sierra’s abuse

to Defendants’ allegedly inadequate supervision, as well as to misrepresentations they

allegedly made to judicial officers and Melendez-Spencer regarding the status of

A’Sierra. In a fourth amended complaint (“the Complaint”) filed by counsel, Plaintiffs

used those and other allegations to support a host of claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and

state statutory and common law.

Many of Plaintiffs’ claims survived dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 12(b), and the parties engaged in lengthy discovery. Ultimately, it appears that

no evidence was adduced to support Plaintiffs’ core allegations. The District Court

essentially concluded as much in granting Defendants’ motion for summary judgment,

and it specifically determined that Plaintiffs’ claims were legally defective in several

*

This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not

2

ways: the claims were either barred by the applicable statutes of limitation or the Rooker-

Feldman doctrine, 1 or were successfully parried by Defendants’ various immunity

defenses. 2 Melendez-Spencer appealed. 3

constitute binding precedent.

1

See District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983); Rooker v.

Fidelity Tr. Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923); cf. Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp.,

544 U.S. 280, 283 (2005) (explaining that “federal courts of first instance” lack

jurisdiction to “review and reverse unfavorable state-court judgments”); Great W. Mining

and Mineral Co. v. Fox Rothschild LLP, 615 F.3d 159, 166 (3d Cir. 2010) (identifying

four requirements that must be met for Rooker-Feldman doctrine to apply). We focused

on the fourth requirement of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine—that “the plaintiff invites the

district court to review and reject the state-court judgment”—in In re Philadelphia

Entertainment & Development Partners, 879 F.3d 492 (3d Cir. 2018). See id. at 500.

Reinforcing various features of the “review and reject” requirement, we stated there, in

pertinent part: “if the federal court’s review does not concern the bona fides of the prior

judgment, the federal court is not conducting appellate review, regardless of whether

compliance with the second judgment would make it impossible to comply with the first

judgment. In that situation, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine would not apply because the

plaintiff is not complaining of legal injury caused by a state court judgment because of a

legal error committed by the state court.” Id. (internal citations and quotations omitted).

Although the District Court here determined that Rooker-Feldman barred Plaintiffs’

claims “related to the 2003 emergency removal of [A’Sierra] from [Melendez-Spencer’s]

custody, and the subsequent State Court hearings relating thereto,” we are not persuaded

that Plaintiffs’ Complaint sought relief as a result of any purported legal error by the state

court, rather than as a result of allegedly unlawful conduct by Defendants. See B.S. v.

Somerset Cty., 704 F.3d 250, 260 (3d Cir. 2013) (rejecting application of Rooker-

Feldman “[b[ecause the injury Mother claims is [] traceable to Appellees’ actions, as

opposed to the state court orders those actions allegedly caused”).

2

One piece of the District Court’s immunity analysis deserves attention here. The District

Court determined that, under Mammaro v. New Jersey Division of Child Protection &

Permanency, 814 F.3d 164 (3d Cir. 2016), the state-employee defendants in this case

were entitled to “absolute” immunity relative to their involvement in the proceedings that

separated A’Sierra from Melendez-Spencer. The District Court, however, misread

Mammaro. There, we concluded that child welfare employees were entitled to qualified

immunity on the plaintiff’s claim that a temporary displacement of custody of her child

violated substantive due process guarantees under the Fourteenth Amendment. The

3

We agree with the District Court that it was proper to grant Defendants’ motion

for summary judgment. Melendez-Spencer’s claims lacked any evidentiary support, thus

enabling Defendants to show through their documentary submissions that there were no

genuine issues of material fact to send to a jury. Melendez-Spencer’s brief on appeal only

reinforces as much: she relates that “[m]ost of the facts of this case can be gleaned from”

the Complaint, Br. at 6, but allegations disputed in a responsive pleading, compare ECF

68 (the Complaint) with ECF 72 (Defendants’ Answer), are not evidence that can support

or withstand summary judgment. See Williams v. Borough of W. Chester, Pa., 891 F.2d

employees were entitled to qualified immunity on that claim, we held, because there was

“no consensus of authority”—i.e., no clearly established law—that temporarily removing

a child, after the parent takes her out of state-approved housing without permission,

violates substantive due process. Id. at 170.

Nevertheless, the District Court correctly found applicable B.S., supra, where we

held that “absolute immunity for child welfare employees is appropriate when the

employee in question ‘formulat[es] and present[s] . . . recommendations to the court’ with

respect to a child’s custody determination, even if those recommendations are made

outside the context of a dependency proceeding.” 704 F.3d 250, 265 (citation omitted).

B.S. was distinguished by the district court in Mammaro on the ground that “the bulk of

Plaintiff’s allegations . . . concern actions or omissions . . . that appear to lack a

prosecutorial purpose.” Because the employees in Mammaro challenged on interlocutory

appeal only the district court’s qualified immunity determination, we had no occasion

there to review its absolute immunity determination and the applicability of B.S.

3

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and our review is de novo. Bradley v. W.

Chester Univ. of Pa. State Sys. of Higher Educ., 880 F.3d 643, 650 (3d Cir. 2018). We

will affirm if Defendants established “that there is no genuine dispute as to any material

fact and [that they are] entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P.

56(a). Moreover, we may affirm on any basis supported by the record. Phila. Taxi Ass’n,

Inc. v. Uber Techs., Inc., 886 F.3d 332, 338 (3d Cir. 2018). We additionally note that,

because A’Sierra did not join this appeal, we are not reviewing the District Court’s

decision to the extent it granted summary judgment on her personal claims.

4

458, 460 (3d Cir. 1989). 4 And though Melendez-Spencer argues that “[i]ssues of material

fact abound in this matter,” Br. at 6, she fails on appeal to identify any record evidence

indicating even one disputed, material issue of fact. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc.,

477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986) (“Only disputes over facts that might affect the outcome of the

suit under the governing law will properly preclude the entry of summary judgment.”).

Separate and apart from lacking evidentiary support, Melendez-Spencer’s claims

also were time-barred, and she does not argue otherwise on appeal. Her claims under 42

U.S.C. § 1983, New Jersey’s Civil Rights Act, N.J.S.A. § 10:6-1 et seq., and New Jersey

tort law all are governed by a two-year statute of limitations. See Dique v. New Jersey

State Police, 603 F.3d 181, 185 (3d Cir. 2010); Save Camden Public Sch. v. Camden City

Bd. of Educ., --- A.3d ---, 2018 WL 1915071, at *4 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. Apr. 24,

2018). 5 Melendez-Spencer did not file suit until March 2012, but the alleged misconduct

of Defendants cited in the Complaint to support Melendez-Spencer’s claims all occurred

4

In opposing summary judgment, Plaintiffs argued that “[t]he only evidence that [they]

can produce is their own testimony,” ECF 117 at 13, though they produced neither

transcripts of their deposition testimony (if they were even deposed) nor affidavits.

5

In the Complaint, Melendez-Spencer raised a claim under the New Jersey Child

Placement Bill of Rights Act (“CPBRA”), N.J.S.A. § 9:6B-1 to 6. It is not clear whether

the CPBRA incorporates a statute of limitations. Regardless, Melendez-Spencer had no

standing to bring a claim under CPBRA because a private right of action thereunder,

assuming one exists, is held by the subject child, not her parents. See N.J.S.A. § 9:6B-4;

cf. K.J. v. Div. of Youth and Family Servs., 363 F. Supp. 2d 728, 743-45 (D.N.J. 2005).

5

(in some instances years) before March 2010. See Defs. Br. at 17. 6 Her claims were thus

untimely.

Therefore, the judgment of the District Court will be affirmed. Melendez-

Spencer’s serial motion for an extension of time to file a reply brief is denied; she was

previously directed to our Local Appellate Rules, which provide that “[o]nly one motion

for extension of time to file a reply brief may be granted.” 3d Cir. L.A.R. 31.4 (2011).

6

We recognize Plaintiffs’ allegations in the Complaint that the 2003 findings of child

neglect and excessive corporal punishment were overturned in mid-2010, and that the

predicates for certain of Melendez-Spencer’s claims thus could not have been

‘discovered’ until that time. Cf. Gonzalez v. Corning, 885 F.3d 186, 191 (3d Cir. 2018)

(“[A] claim brought under the law of a state in which the discovery rule applies arises

when the claimant discovers the injury.”). The summary judgment record, however,

demonstrates that there is no genuine dispute as to the following: (1) letters from DCF

and the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General (“NJAG”), see ECF 116-8 at 2 (Aug.

2010 DCF letter); ECF 116-8 at 4-5 (Oct. 2010 NJAG letter), communicating that certain

findings were being “overturned,” concerned not the findings supporting the 2003

removal but rather separate findings, made several years later, of substantiated abuse and

neglect first revealed in the report by a state-retained clinical social worker (the

“Auerbach report”); (2) these later findings of abuse and neglect were “overturned” not

because they were false but because DCF was no longer inclined to participate in the

administrative review process, given “the age of the children involved and their current

status, the fact that [Melendez-Spencer] is already on [DCF’s] central registry for a

previous substantiated allegation of physical abuse and the fact that the [DCF] worker

who conducted the investigation is attending graduate school in London and was

unavailable and / or unwilling to testify,” ECF 116-8 at 4; and (3) no evidence was

adduced by Melendez-Spencer to support the notion that the allegedly unlawful conduct

of Defendants would not have occurred absent substantiation of certain allegations in the

Auerbach report. The 2010 letters from DCF and the NJAG thus were not material to any

of Melendez-Spencer’s personal claims and their ‘discovery’ did not trigger any relevant

statute of limitations or otherwise serve as points of claim-accrual.

6