Legal Question in Civil Rights Law in Missouri

Re: Child taken into States Custody and fail to contact non custodial parent

No malpractice or torotious action can ever be said to be completely impossible, until it is filed, and Dismissed after appeal.

But, it seems that what you propose is unlikely to succeed. Are you saying that for five years you were unaware of your daughter;s whereabouts? Did you not talk or see your daughter during those years? Were you paying child support for those five years? In most cases I have been involved in, soon after placement with DFS, the child support is redirected to DFS. Were you ever told to send your support payments to another address or payee?

If you were not paying support, and unaware of your daughter's whereabouts,a nd had not had contact with your daughter for five years, an attorney defending any of the defendants you propose to sue, by painting you as a non-parent rather than just a non-custodial parent. When the state lists the funds and manhours put into your daugher's care for the past six years, you might appear derelict in your non-parenting.

The way it usually works is that the custodial parent is interviewed at the tiem of removal to determine the identity and location of family members to dtermine best placement. From what you wrote, I am assuming that the custodial parent was the mother, and that she told them the name, city and COunty of the man she believed to be the father. It is unclear whow much investigation that State is required to do to "find" the other parent. IF your paternity had not been established by marriage or presumption through birth certificate, the State may not be required to do a lot of research beyond looking in the telephone book to try and find a phone number or address. If you are the mother, than the establishment of maternity is usually a nonissue, and you can disregard this paragraph.

If you are the father, and your patermnity had already been established, it seems very off that you had not heard anything in these years about child support, which would have tipped you off that your daughter is not with the mother anymore.

As to the Guardian ad Litem (GAL), if you have filed a Motion for modification of the placement Order, the GAL is generally expected to inteview you, so that they can report to the Court, their opinion as whether placement with you is in the childs' best interest. To my knowledge, they are not required or even expected to seek out the non-custodial parent prior to that.

Every case of neglect or intentional tort requires damages. You did not indicate what psychological damage your daughter has suffered as a result of being in State custody. You also di dnot indicate why she was no longer with the custodial parent. Without these facts, it is impossilbe to dtermine if there were any damages that were worse than she would have endured if she had stayed with the custodai parent.

Good Luck