Judges Reject Orange County’s Claim That Social Workers Didn’t Know Lying In Court Was Wrong

The stunned California Court of Appeal panel

 

Using taxpayer funds, government officials in Orange County have spent the last 16 years arguing the most absurd legal proposition in the entire nation: How could social workers have known it was wrong to lie, falsify records and hide exculpatory evidence in 2000 so that a judge would forcibly take two young daughters from their mother for six-and-a-half years?

From the you-can’t-make-up-this-crap file, county officials are paying Lynberg & Watkins, a private Southern California law firm specializing in defending cops in excessive force lawsuits, untold sums to claim the social workers couldn’t have “clearly” known that dishonesty wasn’t acceptable in court and, as a back up, even if they did know, they should enjoy immunity for their misdeeds because they were government employees.

A panel at the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit this week ruled on Orange County’s appeal of federal judge Josephine L. Staton’s refusal last year to grant immunity to the bureaucrats in Preslie Hardwick v. County of Orange, a lawsuit seeking millions of dollars in damages. In short, judges Stephen S. Trott, John B. Owens and Michelle T. Friedland were not amused. They affirmed Staton’s decision.

But to grasp the ridiculousness of the government’s stance, read key, Oct. 7, 2016 exchanges between the panel and Pancy Lin, a partner at Lynberg & Watkins.

Trott: How in the world could a person in the shoes of your clients possibly believe that it was appropriate to use perjury and false evidence in order to impair somebody’s liberty interest in the care, custody and control of that person’s children? How could they possibly not be on notice that you can’t do this?

Lin: I understand.

Trott: How could that possibly be?

Lin: I understand the argument that it seems to be common sense in our ethical, moral . . .

Trott: It’s more than common sense. It’s statutes that prohibit perjury and submission of false evidence in court cases.

Lin: State statutes.

Trott: Are you telling me that a person in your client’s shoes couldn’t understand you can’t commit perjury in a court proceeding in order to take somebody’s children away?

Lin: Of course not, your honor.

Trott: Of course not!

Owens: Isn’t the case over then?

Trott: The case is over.

Lin: Thus far we have not been presented with a clearly established right that tells us what our clients did which was remove the children pursuant to a court order.

Friedland: The issue here is committing perjury in a court to take away somebody’s children and you just said that’s obviously not okay to do.

Lin: According to our moral compass and our ethical guidelines, but we’re here to decide the constitutionality of it and we look to the courts to tell us.

Trott: You mean to tell us due process is consistent with a government official submitting perjured testimony and false evidence? How is that consistent? I mean I hate to get pumped up about this but I’m just staggered by the claim that people in the shoes of your clients wouldn’t be on notice that you can’t use perjury and false evidence to take away somebody’s children. That to me is mind boggling.

Lin: In criminal proceedings we know this to be true because . . .

Trott: No, no! It’s a court proceeding with a liberty interest, a fundamental liberty interest at stake.

Lin: And on the reverse side . . .

Trott: And you’re telling us that these officials [weren’t] on notice that you can’t commit perjury and put in false evidence?

Lin: I understand broadly the principle that common sense tells us that lying is wrong and lying to . . .

Trott: Yeah, but it’s more than common sense. We’re using statutes against this kind of behavior.

Lin: I, uh, I don’t. I was not presented [sic]. I have not been seen [sic] any federal law or case law or law that tells me that in this situation that we were faced in that, which is what we have to look at . . .

Trott: Well, say your clients hired six people to be actors and to go into court and to say, ‘We’re neighbors and we saw all this terrible stuff.’ And then your client presented those witnesses in court. You’re telling me that they would have no reason to believe that you can’t do that because there was no federal case that says you can’t bring actors into court to swear falsely against somebody?

Lin: But again here we’re appealing to a sort of broader definition of what is a clearly established right. I mean we have to find the clearly established right in the context our, um, social workers were presented with, which was they were faced with a court order.

Trott: Again, I cannot even believe for a micro-second that a social worker wouldn’t understand that you can’t lie and put in false evidence!

Owens: Let me ask the question a different way. Is there anything you know of that told social workers that they should lie and that they should create false evidence in a court proceeding?

Lin: No, and, of course, that is, uh, we contend that is not what happened here.

Successfully arguing for Hardwick, attorney Dennis Inglos of San Jose followed up to Lin’s dismal performance, stating, “Lying is bad. It’s obviously bad. It’s constitutionally bad . . . They keep fighting the proposition that lying is bad. This is astounding to me that this case is still being fought. It’s so simple. The lies are on paper in a transcript—the deliberate falsehoods.”

Now that Lin and county officials have been alerted by the Ninth Circuit that lying by powerful bureaucrats is bad, the civil case resumes inside Orange County’s Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse in Santa Ana.

11 Replies to “Judges Reject Orange County’s Claim That Social Workers Didn’t Know Lying In Court Was Wrong”

  1. The family courts are continuing to allow perjury and false evidence in court proceedings!

    Please check out my story about two judges.. and now a third involved in the international kidnapping of my 3 year old son and the cover up.

  2. I just read this article and am shocked that the social worker are still employed.. keep up great work Scott….
    You are the peoples Journal is….
    ……

    Please crack the books and get any and all public records request s and compare notes with arrest reports ,and prosecutor denials of filing charges, and affidavit by police…

    Also police and prosecutor and county attorney s disobeying u.s. Constitution…
    Laws procedures and rules . Etc…

    Compare all look at numerous lies false charges, unlawfully filing…cover-ups…

    Also find out if City attorney s are required to get final approval from oc procecut ors office to file charges with insufficient evidence.. as well..

    A government of by and for the people…

    Also follow paperwork at police station interview boss heads department heads top brass and record them and catch them in lies….

    Find out how many prosecutor denial s there were from police agencies police charges….

    Prosecutor iAl misconduct

    Court clerk abuse

    Follow dispatch logs

    Follow paper work

    Interview in mate…listen to complaints…

    Denial of Attorney

    Denial of food ingredients list
    Denial of Bible
    Denial of phone call
    Excessive force reports….

    Denials of complaint forms

    ..

  3. I had the same thing happen to us with our kids wrongly taken by CPS for 8 months no reason.. we took it all the way to the grand jury of riverside county, California. And the worker was forced to resign… but yet I still paid back child support to them for 20+ years… I wish I could get a lawyer to go after the county for my case and after…..

  4. I intercepted an email from the DCYF social worker who removed my kids. She accused DCYF of being corrupt and lying to get through cases. She said it a few months after being terminated.
    The medical reports state info that is contradicting to cps intake narratives. SMH. I’m glad to know this is really a thing.

  5. Wow. I just found this article. It is 04/30/2023, and I just happen to be online searching for any kind of help or solution regarding the VERY, INSANELY SIMILAR nightmare that I am currently dealing with.
    I live in Randolph County, North Carolina. On 09/23/2021, a judge issued a court order for CPS(Child Protective Services) to remove all three of my kids from my home. The social worker obtained the court order by typing pages and pages of bogus allegations, twisted truths, and blatant lies. They have also FALSIFIED DRUG TEST RESULTS. I have proof. I have the actual drug test results that they have lied about. I have shown everything to my lawyer, my husbands lawyer, the GAL, and one of the case workers.
    I am reading so many of these stories, from SEVERAL states. It is like the same play, with different actors taking the stage every time. I have come to the conclusion that the only way to make anyone take action, is for me to actually present the evidence to the public myself. But I can not get one single local journalist to return my call. If anyone who sees this has any experience or ideas, please contact me at ly************@gm***.com

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