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DCF workers who authorized removal of kids in Waltham could stand trial, judge rules
A couple is suing the DCF workers who ordered the seizure of their children. This was done without their consent and despite an investigation finding no evidence of abuse, they say.
In July of 2022, social workers from the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families arrived at the Waltham home of Josh Sabey and Sarah Perkins in the middle of the night, with the intent of removing the couple’s two young children from the house on suspicions of abuse. The couple did not regain custody of their children for four months.
Sabey and Perkins later sued the DCF workers and police officers who worked to remove the children from their care that night, alleging their constitutional rights were violated. The couple, who no longer live in Massachusetts, say they have never abused their children. They alleged the DCF workers and police entered their home without a warrant and seized their children even though there was no “plausible imminent threat” that could justify such an action.
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Earlier this month, a federal judge allowed the lawsuit to proceed against two DCF employees for the alleged unreasonable seizure of the children.
Those two employees have been identified in court documents as Katheryn Butterfield and Candice Gemski. Butterfield is an area program manager for the agency, while Gemski is a regional director, according to the order from Judge Patti Saris. She allowed multiple Waltham police officers and other DCF employees to be removed from the lawsuit.
DCF got involved with the family after Perkins took their 3-month-old child to the emergency room with a high fever. An X-ray at the hospital revealed that the child had a healing rib fracture, which caused concern among hospital staff. Perkins told a social worker at the hospital that she was unaware of the injury and did not know what could have caused it, according to the lawsuit.
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A DCF investigation ensued, which found no evidence of abuse and no concerns with the children’s living situation, according to the lawsuit. Regardless, DCF officials made the decision to remove the two children from their home.
“While the Sabeys were ultimately—and obviously—cleared of any wrongdoing, and the children were eventually reunited with their parents, nothing can undo the trauma of that early July morning and the prolonged abrogation of the Sabeys’ parental rights. For parents, the emotional and physical toll of having your crying children torn from your arms never goes away,” the lawsuit reads.
Saris, in her order from earlier this month, described the “genuine dispute of material fact” regarding whether the couple consented to the removal of their children that night.
The couple argues that they allowed their children to be taken because of “coercive tactics” and the belief that officials would send a SWAT team to forcibly remove the children.
The defendants argue that there were “ongoing peaceful negotiations” that night, that they would have summoned a crisis negotiating team, not necessarily a SWAT unit, and that the couple consented to the removal of their children voluntarily based on the advice of a lawyer.
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Butterfield and Gemski say that they cannot be liable because they did not physically participate in the removal of the children. But, Saris said, a reasonable jury could find them liable for ordering the seizure of the children.
“A reasonable official in their shoes would have understood that ordering the removal of the children without judicial authorization in such circumstances violated the children’s clearly established Fourth Amendment rights unless parental consent was obtained,” Saris wrote.
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