Appeals court hears challenge over enforcing DCF fair‑hearing placement decision

A panel of the Supreme Judicial Court heard oral argument over whether a superior court may require the Department of Children and Families (DCF) to enforce a fair‑hearing officer’s decision that a grandmother was an appropriate kinship caregiver.

Appellant counsel Attorney LaManna told the court she represented the grandmother and asked the justices to find the superior court had jurisdiction under the Administrative Procedure Act (Chapter 38) and Chapter 231 to issue declaratory and injunctive relief compelling DCF to follow the fair‑hearing outcome. “Justice delayed is justice denied,” LaManna said, noting the fair hearing concluded in September 2023 but the decision was not issued until May 2024.

The department, represented by Assistant Attorney General Phoebe Fisher Groban, argued the complaint seeks a placement determination and that placement decisions are governed by the department’s regulations and the juvenile care‑and‑protection proceedings. “Placement determinations need to be based on their current best interests,” Fisher Groban told the court, saying intervening events — including a sealed report, the children moving to other placements and a father’s stipulation terminating parental rights — supported a new placement decision by the agency.

LaManna said DCF had a regulatory mechanism to review the fair‑hearing result (cited in argument as 1 10 CMR 10.29) but did not use it within the 21‑day window and later convened a closed meeting to change course. She argued the department then relied on evidence the grandmother had no opportunity to challenge, leaving her without an adequate remedy and rendering the agency’s own final decision meaningless unless enforceable by the courts. “They just made a different decision,” LaManna said, asserting that the agency’s final decision should be admissible and give her client a meaningful remedy in other proceedings.

Counsel for the children, Morgan Russell, urged the court to defer to the juvenile process, describing child‑welfare placement as an “incredibly dynamic” fact pattern where permanency goals and the children’s needs can change during pendency; he argued the superior court lacked authority to grant the specific placement relief sought. Justices repeatedly questioned whether the case concerns jurisdiction to hear the claim or a separate question about whether the court could grant the relief requested.

Arguments also touched on evidentiary differences between the fair hearing and the department’s later decision, including a sealed exhibit the department says was not available at the time of the fair hearing. Counsel discussed parallel remedies available to the grandmother — including a guardianship petition in juvenile court — but disagreed about whether those alternatives eliminate a superior‑court declaratory remedy.

The bench heard argument and ran out of time. The justices did not state a decision from the bench; the matter was taken under advisement at the close of argument.