holding that “[t]he evaluation of a qualified immunity defense is appropriate for summary judgment because the court’s inquiry is primarily legal: whether the legal norms the defendant’s conduct allegedly violated were clearly established.”
How later courts described this case
- holding that “[t]he evaluation of a qualified immunity defense is appropriate for summary judgment because the court’s inquiry is primarily legal: whether the legal norms the defendant’s conduct allegedly violated were clearly established.”
- observing that "this admittedly fact-intensive analysis must be conducted by viewing the facts alleged in the light most favorable to the plaintiff"
- explaining that "[i]t is not educators, but parents who have primary rights in the upbringing of children. School officials have only a secondary responsibility and must respect these rights."
- holding that a defendant’s alleged interference with a high school student’s interaction with other swimmers “clearly [did] not amount to a violation of a protected right”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
ROTH, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part:
I write separately on the issue of interference with familial relations. While I concur with the majority’s ruling that Seip is entitled to summary judgment on the claim for interference with familial relations, I disagree that the Gruenkes have alleged such a constitutional violation.
The factual basis for the Gruenkes’ claim of interference with family relations lies in their claims that Seip destroyed Joan Gruenke’s right -to raise and advise Leah, her daughter, without outside influences of the public, Appellants’ Opening Br. at 47, and that he destroyed Leah’s right as a child and a potential parent to abort the fetus or carry it to term. See id. at 49. They assert that Seip disclosed the results of the pregnancy test to Leah’s classmates and to Seip’s assistant coaches but not to Leah’s parents or to the higher school administrators. See id. at 51. The Gruenkes qualify their claims by acknowledging that while Seip “did not personally coerce Leah to make any decision regarding her pregnancy,[he] did set in motion a chain of events that prevented[the Gruenkes] from making childbirth and reproductive decisions autonomously.” Id. at 51-52. While it is unfortunate that, as a result of Seip’s actions, the Gruenkes may ■have had certain personal family matters disclosed in an unwanted manner, I do not *309 believe that this subsequent disclosure violated a constitutional right.
I reach this conclusion because the type of interference that the Gruenkes assert does not fall within the scope of actions that constitutionally infringe on familial privacy. In evaluating the Gruenkes’ claims of an unconstitutional interference with parents’ fundamental right to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of children, I will turn first to Troxel v. Granville, — U.S. -, 120 S.Ct. 2054 , 147 L.Ed.2d 49 (2000), the most recent Supreme Court case dealing with this issue. 1 In Troxel , a plurality of the Court found that a Washington statute, providing for the rights of visitation with minor children, violated the substantive due process rights of the mother because of its “breathtaking” scope: Any person could petition at any time for visitation of a child with the only requirement being that the visitation serve the best interest of the child. Id. at 2061 . A parent’s decision that visitation would not be in the child’s best interest was given no deference; the best interest determination was placed solely in the hands of the judge. See id. In writing for the plurality, Justice O’Con-nor stated that “so long as a parent adequately cares for his or her children (i.e., is fit), there will normally be no reason for the State to inject itself into the private realm of the family to further question the ability of that parent to make the best decisions concerning the rearing of that parent’s children.” Id. (emphasis added) (citing Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 304 , 113 S.Ct. 1439 , 123 L.Ed.2d 1 (1993)).
This reasoning in Troxel is consistent with the Court’s earlier decisions defining the scope of the liberty interest of parents to control the upbringing of their children without interference from the state. These cases, upon which Troxel relies, involve the injection of the state into the process of raising children. For example, in two of these cases, the Court declared unconstitutional laws that impeded parents’ decisions on their children’s education by prohibiting private schools, see Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 , 45 S.Ct. 571 , 69 L.Ed. 1070 (1925), or the teaching of foreign languages in schools, see Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 , 43 S.Ct. 625 , 67 L.Ed. 1042 (1923).
In a third one, Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745 , 102 S.Ct. 1388 , 71 L.Ed.2d 599 (1982), the Court held that, to terminate parental rights, a state must present clear and convincing evidence of unfitness. In yet another, M.L.B. v. S.L.J., 519 U.S. 102 , 117 S.Ct. 555 , 136 L.Ed.2d 473 (1996), the Court held that a right to appeal informa pauperis must be granted by the state when parental rights are terminated. Finally, in Quilloin v. Walcott, 434 U.S. 246 , 98 S.Ct. 549 , 54 L.Ed.2d 511 (1978), the Court rejected the efforts of the father of an illegitimate child to veto the adoption of that child by the natural mother’s husband. Instead, it concluded that a natural father who had failed to claim paternity until the adoption was proposed could not rely on state law to overturn the state’s full recognition of an already existing family unit that was in the child’s best interests. See id. at 255-56 , 98 S.Ct. 549 . Each of these cases share a common theme: They involve a situation in which the state has attempted by statute or by a court’s procedural requirements to eliminate a parent’s role in the custody or nurture of the child.
The situation before in this case is very different. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has not attempted by statute or by court proceedings to determine the outcome of Leah’s pregnancy or to dictate whether she should keep the child or give it up for adoption. Nor did Seip physically *310 prevent Leah or her parents from taking any action as a consequence- of her pregnancy. The claim here is that Seip’s discussion of Leah’s pregnancy with others and his failure to inform the Gruenkes of the pregnancy merely complicated the Gruenkes’ ability to make decisions concerning the pregnancy. This alleged breach of privacy and failure by a school official to impart information to the family is not an action by the state to control the education of a child against the parents’ wishes or to determine custody or visitation without proper input by the parents. In fact, the Gruenkes were free at all times to make whatever decision they pleased as to the outcome of Leah’s pregnancy, even after Seip discussed her condition with other parents or swim team members.
Accepting the facts as proffered by the Gruenkes, I conclude that the Gruenkes have failed to establish the violation of a constitutional right to familial integrity. Consequently, Seip is entitled to summary judgment on this claim, see Sameric Corp., 142 F.3d at 590 n. 6, but, I believe, not for the reasons cited by the majority.
. We note, however, that, to the extent Troxel expanded the boundaries of parental rights, it cannot for qualified immunity purposes apply to Seip's past actions since, as a case decided this Term, it could not, by definition, retroactively govern his actions in 1997. See Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727 (noting that law must be clearly established at "the time an action occurred.")