Castle Rock v. Gonzales III: Protection for Me but None for Thee

The docket for Castle Rock indicates what organizations and parties have filed amicus briefs.  Conspiciously absent from this page are people who are supposed to care about children - social workers.

As I demonstrated in this post, DeShaney - the precedent Castle Rock builds its case upon - harms children.  Social workers about supposed to care about children.  Indeed, Castle Rock involves the murder of three children.  Thus, I expected to see an amicus brief filed by social services workers, encouraging the Court to distinguish DeShaney.

To my surprise, they have not filed one.  Why not?  Because that could mean that social workers would be liable for returning children to a dangerous home.  Social workers who knowingly place children in an abuse home currently face no liability. 

But shouldn't the good social workers want the bad social workers to face liabilty?  I want to see corrupt lawyers to face lawsuits and disbarment proceedings.  Shouldn't social workers want their ignoble peers to face harsh punishment?

Judging from the sound of silence, I guess not.

That's something to consider the next time some special-interest group for social workers bandies about, telling everyone how much they love children.  If social workers really cared about children, wouldn't they want to provide a remedy for those who are abused? 

Or does loyalty to crooked and incompetent social workers trump the safety of children?

Comments

[Matt]

It's like listening to the teachers' union pretend to care about education.

Are social workers unionized? If so, there's your answer. (Lawyers, of course, are not unionized, and so are free to criticize individual bad actors in their midst and any policies that protect those bad actors at the expense of their victims.)

At least the social workers have the decency to stay silent, rather than coming out _against_ the children.

I have difficulty imagining any real-world scenario in which the absence of the doctrine of sovereign immunity would be anything other than an improvement.

[Timothy Sandefur]

For what it's worth, I had a long discussion about the merits of suing government school teachers for malpractice here. After hearing all the objections in the comments to that post, I'm still convinced it would be a good idea.

[Timothy Sandefur]

Oops. That link should have been: http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/000679.html