The Legal Aid Society intervened in a federal class action lawsuit brought by kinship foster parents on behalf of themselves and Juvenile Rights Practice’s clients to challenge the constitutionality of the New York City Administration for Children's Services’ (ACS) and New York State Office of Children and Family Services’ (OCFS) procedures governing the removal of children from foster parents who are relatives. After we filed an amended class action complaint on behalf of our clients, the court severed and consolidated the cases. Our complaint alleged that children in kinship foster care were denied substantive and procedural due process due to: ACS policy and practice of removing children from the care of their relatives on an emergency basis when no true emergency existed, ACS and OCFS failure to provide guidelines governing non-emergency removals, and ACS and OCFS failure to provide children with a meaningful opportunity to be heard in administrative proceedings challenging removals. In 2007, on motion of OCFS, the court dismissed our clients’ Fourth Amendment claims but held that the infant plaintiffs had a protected liberty interest in the integrity of their relationship with their kinship foster parent. In 2008, the Southern District of New York denied our motion to certify a class and the Second Circuit denied our motion for leave to appeal the denial of class certification. In Balbuena, the court granted OCFS’s and the foster care agency defendant’s motions for judgment on the pleadings. Thereafter, in 2008 the court entered a stipulation of voluntary dismissal of Balbuena’s claims against ACS.

In 2013, we entered into a settlement agreement with ACS where our clients were provided with monetary damages.