On February 3, 2015, minors in the custody of the Arizona foster care system filed this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona. The plaintiffs sued the Arizona Department of Child Safety, the Arizona Department of Health Services, and the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Title XIX of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. § 1396). The plaintiffs, represented by Children’s Rights, Inc., the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, and private counsel, sought class certification and both declaratory and injunctive relief. The plaintiffs claimed that the defendants had violated their First, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights, and provisions of the Medicaid Act. Specifically, the plaintiffs claimed that certain child welfare policies and practices exposed them to physical and emotional harm and unreasonable risk of harm while in the State’s care.

Over the past several years, Arizona had experienced a dramatic increase in the number of children in state foster care, nearly doubling from 2003 to 2012. The plaintiffs alleged that this growth had been fueled by extensive state budget cuts to important support services that had previously helped keep families together. The plaintiffs alleged that these cuts resulted in problematic policies and institutional issues in Arizona, including: a severe shortage of physical, mental, and behavioral health services available to children in state care; a widespread failure to conduct timely investigations of reports that children have been maltreated while in state custody; and severe and sustained shortage of family foster homes. Allegedly, there was also a widespread failure to engage in basic child welfare practices aimed at maintaining family relationships, such as placing siblings together, placing children with their biological parents on a trial reunification basis, coordinating visits between children and their biological families, and having caseworkers make regular visits with the children’s biological parents to monitor progress toward family reunification. Due to these problems, children were frequently placed far from their home communities, forced to change schools, separated from their siblings, and did not receive the mental and physical health care that they required.

On September 29, 2015, Judge Roslyn O. Silver denied the defendants’ motion to abstain and dismiss due to lack of subject matter jurisdiction. 156 F. Supp. 3d 1024. On May 13, 2016, the Court ordered that one of the three next of friends (in this case, a person who represents a minor unable to maintain a lawsuit on his or her own behalf) be dismissed because they were ineligible to be a next friend. 2016 WL 8200450.

After two years of continuous discovery disputes and scheduling delays, Judge Roslyn O. Silver granted class certification for the plaintiffs on September 30, 2017. The class was defined in three parts as:

"General Class: All children who are or will be in the legal custody of DCS due to a report or suspicion of abuse or neglect. Non-Kinship Subclass: All members in the General Class who are not placed in the care of an adult relative or person who has a significant relationship with the child. Medicaid Subclass: All members of the General Class who are entitled to early and periodic screening, diagnostic, and treatment services under the federal Medicaid statute."

The defendants appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and on December 19, 2017, the Ninth Circuit granted the right to appeal the class certification issued on September 30, 2017.

On January 3, 2018, the defendants moved to stay further action in the case while the class action appeal was decided by the Ninth Circuit. The defendants argue that the District Court proceedings should be stayed because discovery for the class action was time intensive and expensive, and the deadlines for dispositive motions in the District Court conflicted with deadlines in the Court of Appeals. Plaintiffs argued that an indefinite stay would cause irreparable harm to children in foster care.

On February 13, 2018, Judge Silver denied without prejudice the defendants’ motion to stay, finding that the defendants were unlikely to succeed on the merits. However, on February 27, 2018, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a motion to stay pending the decision on the class certification.

On June 4, 2018, one of the plaintiffs filed a handwritten motion for leave to file a supplemental complaint, requesting the certification of an additional subclass called “Plaintiffs with Mental Illnesses,” of which he would be a member. Judge Silver denied this motion on September 24, 2018, since a class certification appeal was still pending before the Ninth Circuit.

The Ninth Circuit released its decision on April 26, 2019, affirming two of the certified subclasses and vacating and remanding one. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the General Class and the Non-Kinship Subclass, but vacated and remanded the Medicaid Subclass, finding that the district court failed to make a finding that each member of the class was subject to identical future significant risk of Medicaid violations that would support injunctive relief. 922 F.3d 957.

The parties agreed that the plaintiffs would recertify the Medicaid class and that additional discovery would be needed. On July 31, 2019, the plaintiffs thereafter filed a motion for class recertification, and on August 9, 2019, Judge Silver ordered the defendants to pay the costs of additional discovery, which were projected to range from $135,000-$150,000.

On October 11, 2019, Judge Silver granted the plaintiffs’ motion to recertify the Medicaid subclass. The case is ongoing.

Katrina Fetsch - 04/16/2016
Mary Kate Sickel - 02/13/2018
Elizabeth Helpling - 10/16/2019


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