Child protective services and false reporting

one of the residents within my subdivision had been at one point consistently speeding along my street. my son and i were outside of my home on one particular day so i yelled at him to slow down - no swearing or derogatory gestures of any kind i might add. the resident skidded to a stop, reversed back to in front of my home, exited his vehicle, ran up to where my son and i were standing at my property line and threatened to physically harm me if i did not go back in to my home. a few words were exchanged and i requested that the guy go home or i would call the police. at that point his wife, who was waiting in the vehicle stated that she was going to call the child protective services and report me. i asked for what reason, she stated for "swearing at my children", which i found a little odd due to the fact that not only was i not swearing at my son, i had never come in contact with either of these residents prior to this particular altercation and to the best of my knowledge there was literally no way they could have known whether or not i had ever sworn in front of my children or at them for that matter. i walked back in to my home and called the police. approximately 2 days later, the child protective services arrived at my door. apparently these same residents called the cps and stated something even more serious - my three year old son was left out in the street to play by himself, unattended, for long periods of time, more than three times a week. this insighted a full investigation by the cps - teachers, doctors, neighbors, etc. i have no prior history with any state cps, nor do i have any history that what even begin to correlate with this type of activity. so far the police have not been helpful, i filed for a peace bond but the other resident lied, video taped another resident in the subdivision and stated i was harassing them and subsequently got out of the peace bond as well as an "simple assault by threat" charge by the state and the attorney i retained, decided after i paid a retainer that he was not going to recommend filing a civil suit for false reporting, defmation, etc. - do i have a case? or is this just not a case that i can win?

In what state?

The state of Texas!

It would be tricky to make a claim. As the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services states,

Quote:

---

Quoting Texas Child Protective Services

---

Will the person know I've reported him or her?

Your report is confidential and is not subject to public release under the Open Records Act. The law provides for immunity from civil or criminal liability for innocent persons who report even unfounded suspicions, as long as your report is made in good faith. Your identity is kept confidential.

What if I'm not sure?

If you have reason to suspect child abuse, but are not positive, make the report. If you have any doubts about whether or not it is abuse, call the hotline. They can advise you on whether the signs you have observed are abuse.

---

So CPS won't voluntarily tell you who made the report, and if you do manage to find out you would have to demonstrate that the complaint was made in bad faith.

If you paid your lawyer a retainer, I would hope the lawyer extended you the courtesy of explaining his determination that a lawsuit wasn't appropriate.

i agree. this is a tricky situation. this is where the problem lie for me, being personally involved. when we went to jp court, the other party admitted to calling the cps when asked by the jp court judge so i know it was her that made the call. for me, this consitutes admission and since the resident threatened to call cps, then changed her story after the fact in what seems to be a "retalitory" action, i would think that this would be a slam dunk, but that's just my personal opinion of course. i actually requested and recived writen statements form all of my 5 immediate neighbors as well as another statement from a neighbor 2 homes away that actual witnessed the altercation. within all of these statements, including the witness statement, they all claim that they have never seen my children out in the street unattended, nor was my son in the street during the time of the altercation. again, i understand that this is a difficult situation to prove mal intent, but would what i just described be enough to back up my claim of the other resident making the false report out of retaliation and with mal intent, or do i actually need more?

BTW - thanks for replying to my posts.

check out the texas family code - chapter 261. to compliment what you found regarding immunity, i know that there is mention of filing criminal suits against those that make false reports, but these types of suits need to be filed by the state agency - cps. how to get them to do their job is maybe the question here. nonetheless, around 06/05 the penalty in texas went up on this to a felony, jail time and up to a 10k fine. i'll see if i can find the exact doc on this and link it in my next post. not to mention, immunity only applies in a report with good intentions, but i would imagine that the burden of proving the mal intent would be placed on me so how can i turn this around so that the person making the false report has to prove why it is that they called?

If you want your case evaluated in terms of litigation, and what you need to show to prove your case, you should discuss it with a local lawyer. I guess that would be a second local lawyer, given that you already discussed your case with one lawyer.

BTW - thanks for replying to my posts.

i was certain that my last lawyer was going to do this for me, but to be honest, at this point it seems that he may not have had any intention of doing so. regardless, we had a very specific discusion on what i wanted to do, a cease and desist letter was sent to the other party, but instead of the letter reading that we were "going" to file a civil suit, it stated that the "next" time the other party made any damaging remarks, then we would file suit. then all of the sudden, after a couple of months of waiting, i followed up with the attorney, questioned what was going on, he made one statement in an email - i would not reccomend filing suit at this time or something to that effect. do you know or could you reccomend the "type" of attorney i would want to look for this time around?

In the most general terms, you want a "tort" lawyer or "civil litigator". I'm not sure how they would be listed in your phone book.

great. thanks for the info.

Quote:

---

Quoting trc

---

BTW - thanks for replying to my posts.

check out the texas family code - chapter 261. to compliment what you found regarding immunity, i know that there is mention of filing criminal suits against those that make false reports, but these types of suits need to be filed by the state agency - cps. how to get them to do their job is maybe the question here. nonetheless, around 06/05 the penalty in texas went up on this to a felony, jail time and up to a 10k fine. i'll see if i can find the exact doc on this and link it in my next post. not to mention, immunity only applies in a report with good intentions, but i would imagine that the burden of proving the mal intent would be placed on me so how can i turn this around so that the person making the false report has to prove why it is that they called?

---

I am asking for anyone who knows about this chapter 261-- I am currently in this situation of a false claim. Court coming soon... need advice and help

You can review Chapter 261 here, in PDF format. There's quite a bit to that set of statutes.