Bissell v. Mata

United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit
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No. 25-50656
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Tiffany Bissell,

Plaintiff—Appellant,

versus

Elaine Mata, in her individual capacity; Brittany Hemenway, in
her individual capacity; Felisha Rodriguez, in her individual capacity;
Danielle Claridge, in her individual capacity; Does 1-10,

Defendants—Appellees.
______________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Texas
USDC No. 6:21-CV-924
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Before Willett, Engelhardt, and Douglas, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam:
*

Plaintiff-Appellant Tiffany Bissell appeals the dismissal of her claims
against employees of the Texas Department of Family and Protective
Services (“TDFPS”) relating to the temporary removal of her minor
children, J.N. and M.D., from her custody. Bissell sued four TDFPS
employees—Elaine Mata, Danielle Claridge, Felisha Rodriguez, and Brittany
_____________________
*
This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
August 17, 2026

Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
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Hemenway—under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violating her Fourteenth
Amendment substantive and procedural due process protections.
1
Bissell
claims the removal of her children resulted in denials of her procedural and
substantive due process rights, as well as a violation of her right to family
integrity. Because we find that Bissell’s right to family integrity is not clearly
established on these facts, and that she has failed to show a violation of her
due process rights, we AFFIRM the order of the district court.
I
Bissell’s first encounter with TDFPS stemmed from a March 5,
2019, investigation into a physical altercation between Bissell and her minor
stepdaughter, C.D. Bissell is married to John Dumdie, who is not a party to
this suit. C.D. is Dumdie’s child from a previous marriage. According to
Bissell’s complaint, C.D. initiated a physical altercation with Bissell that led
to C.D. sustaining a “bruise on her left chin area” and a “scratch over her
right eye.” C.D. was around fourteen years old at the time of this incident.
Roughly two months after the altercation, TDFPS alleged Bissell “refused
to assume parental responsibility” for C.D. because she was a “dangerous”
child. TDFPS removed C.D. from Bissell’s residence.
Defendant-Appellee Elaine Mata, the caseworker assigned to Bissell’s
case, arrived for a home visit on August 30, 2019. Following the visit, Mata
prepared an internal TDFPS report alleging that Bissell was neglectfully
supervising M.D. She expressed concern that Bissell’s past violent behavior
posed a danger to M.D. Mata’s report also referred to a domestic violence
incident that Dumdie initiated against Bissell, even though Mata was
allegedly aware that Dumdie had since retracted his allegations. The report
also discussed Bissell’s previous violent altercation with her stepdaughter.
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1
Bissell also sued ten unnamed defendants employed by TDFPS.
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Defendant-Appellee Claridge then investigated the contents of Mata’s
account. Claridge also received records of Dumdie’s recanted domestic
violence claims from the Coryell County Sheriff’s Office Following her
review of these records, she filed an affidavit for the removal of J.N. and
M.D. Judge Mabray of the Coryell County Court then signed an order to
have J.N. and M.D. removed, and the two minors were temporarily
removed from Bissell’s home. Following the children’s removal, the
neglectful supervision allegation was dismissed.
Bissell’s complaint raises
three Fourteenth Amendment Due Process
Clause claims, including a family-integrity claim resulting from the
temporary removal of her children. She raises the same arguments on appeal.
Following the filing of Bissell’s second amended complaint, the Defendants
filed a motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. The
magistrate judge issued a report recommending that the district court grant
the Defendants’ motion on qualified immunity grounds because Bissell’s
right to family integrity was not clearly established and because she received
adequate procedural due process. Bissell timely filed objections to the
magistrate judge’s report and recommendation. Over her objections, the
district court adopted the recommendation, entered final judgment for the
Defendants, and Bissell appealed to our court.
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II
We review a grant of summary judgment on the basis of qualified
immunity de novo. Morrow v. Meachum, 917 F.3d 870, 874 (5th Cir. 2019)
(citing Vann v. City of Southaven, 884 F.3d 307, 309 (5th Cir. 2018) (per
curiam)). When a public official makes a “good-faith assertion of qualified
immunity,” the plaintiff bears the burden of showing that qualified immunity
is unavailable. Joseph ex rel. Joseph v. Bartlett, 981 F.3d 319, 329–30 (5th Cir.
2020). “The plaintiff must show that there is a genuine dispute of material
fact and that a jury could return a verdict entitling the plaintiff to relief for a
constitutional injury.” Id. at 330. However, “to overcome qualified
immunity, the plaintiff's version of those disputed facts must also constitute
a violation of clearly established law.” Id.
III
Bissell argues that the district court erred in granting qualified
immunity to the Defendants because they fabricated evidence and “omitted
relevant information” that “exculpated” Bissell from the recanted domestic
violence incidents initiated by Dumdie. Bissell also claims that Claridge’s
investigation into Mata’s initial report was a “sham.” On appeal, she
reprises all allegations made in her complaint and maintains that Appellees
“withheld and ignored exculpatory evidence” and that all of Dumdie’s
accusations against her were fabricated. Bissell also argues that qualified
immunity is inappropriate.
First, while Bissell maintains that her constitutional right to family
integrity has been violated, Defendants counter that the right to family
integrity is “not absolute,” and must be balanced against the state’s interests
in health, safety, and the welfare of children, which tip in the state’s favor.
The Supreme Court has recognized that the right to family integrity is
a substantive right guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
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Amendment. See Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 651 (1972) (citation
omitted). “Although constitutionally protected, the right[] to family
integrity. . . [is] not absolute or unqualified.” Morris v. Dearborne, 181 F.3d
657, 669 (5th Cir. 1999) (citation omitted). The state may intervene to
protect a child “when necessary.” Id. “Children’s protective services
workers face difficult decisions in the field.” Roe v. Tex. Dep’t of Protective
and Regul. Servs., 299 F.3d 395, 410 (5th Cir. 2002). They must make “on-
the-spot” decisions in determining whether to remove a child from a
potentially dangerous environment or to make a “judgment call” and leave
the child in that environment. Id. at 410–11. Cases alleging government
interference with this right must therefore be placed “along a continuum
between the state’s clear interest in protecting children and a family’s clear
interest in privacy.” Dearborne, 181 F.3d at 671. To overcome qualified
immunity in this context, a plaintiff must establish that the unlawfulness of
the defendants’ conduct “would [have] be[en] apparent to a reasonably
competent official.” Id. at 666 (citation omitted). On the facts before us, we
conclude that Bissell has failed to make such a showing.
Bissell correctly noted that the right to family integrity is
characterized as “nebulous” because of the tensions discussed above. She
argues, though, that the facts in this case place it “squarely at the end of the
continuum when the state’s interest is negligible and where the family
privacy is well developed.” In support of this argument, Bissell focuses on
ignored “exculpatory” evidence and “misstated” facts, many of which are
irrelevant to the issues on appeal. Bissell then discusses applicable authority
but fails to adequately explain how precedent supports her claim that her
right to family integrity was violated. Throughout her opening brief, she
claims violations of her substantive and procedural due process rights as a
result of these “false” claims against her.
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Bissell’s scattershot claims are difficult to follow. She relies on
criminal cases that have little to do with her clearly established rights, and
fails to illustrate that the judicial proceeding removing her children was
substantively or procedurally defective. She clings only to the fact that
Dumdie’s domestic violence claims were recanted, a fact that was not
disputed at the district court and is not disputed on appeal. She likewise fails
to support her claim that the investigation into her was a “sham,” and fails
to overcome qualified immunity. In fact, her only real argument against
qualified immunity is that our court established that the constitutional right
against false testimony at trial is clearly established. Marks v. Hudson, 933
F.3d 481, 490 (5th Cir. 2019). She claims that the court order to remove her
children was unconstitutional because it was obtained by false affidavit and
focuses once on the “fabricated” claims by Dumdie. The arguments in
Bissell’s reply brief fare no better: she again cites cases which hold that the
right to family integrity is clearly established without showing that the right
is clearly established in this case.
Bissell does not attempt to distinguish the cases the district court
found entitled the Defendants to qualified immunity. In Hodorowski v. Ray,
the Texas Department of Human Services and its employees were sued for
temporarily removing the plaintiffs’ children without a court order. 844 F.2d
1210, 1214 (5th Cir. 1988). In that case, the state employees observed
bruising on the plaintiffs’ children, which was consistent with a report that
their father chased them around the yard with a chain. Id. at 1217. Our court
found that the child protective workers were entitled to qualified immunity
because the right to family integrity was not clearly established under those
facts. Id. In Doe v. Louisiana, the plaintiff alleged, much like Bissell, that the
defendants withheld and ignored exculpatory evidence. 2 F.3d 1412, 1415
(5th Cir. 1993). The complaint in that case alleged “nightmarish” conduct
by the child protective workers during a four-month “witch hunt.” Id. at
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1421 (King., J., concurring). Despite allegations that the state employees
suppressed reports, misrepresented the findings in those reports, and
secretly obtained a court order awarding custody of the plaintiff’s son to his
mother, id., we held that the child protective workers did not violate a clearly
established constitutional right at the time of their conduct. Id. at 1418. The
cases identified by the district court allege conduct more egregious than the
conduct alleged by Bissell, precluding a finding that Bissell’s right to family
integrity was clearly established. She has therefore failed to overcome the
Defendant’s qualified immunity.
The Defendants argue that because Bissell’s brief is so “grossly
inadequate with respect to her substantive, legal arguments” that it
constitutes waiver of many of the issues she intends to raise on appeal. While
many of Bissell’s arguments are indeed underdeveloped, we nevertheless
address her remaining two claims, namely her procedural due process
violation and the consideration of alleged false testimony in Mata’s internal
report.
Bissell argues that the Defendants violated her procedural due process
rights when her children were removed. She states that the Defendants failed
to follow proper state procedures for the judicial removal of a child. In
support of her argument, she cites Gates v. Tex. Dep’t of Protective & Regul.
Servs., 537 F.3d 404 (5th Cir. 2008). She appears to suggest that Mata’s
report was so lacking that the issuance of a removal order relying on its facts
constituted a procedural due process violation. Gates recognized that “the
government may not seize a child from his or her parents absent a court order,
parental consent, or exigent circumstances.” 537 F.3d at 429. In Gates, the
children were seized without a court order, and an immediate post-removal
hearing was held. Id. at 434–35. Here, children were seized pursuant to a
court order. Bissell’s continued focus on Dumdie’s alleged false accusations
does not constitute a clearly established violation of Bissell’s procedural due
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process rights under Gates, and Bissell does not provide any other cases to
carry her burden to overcome qualified immunity.
Bissell’s final argument relating to Claridge’s false affidavit also fails
to overcome qualified immunity. She cites Marks v. Hudson where our court
held that a clearly established constitutional violation occurs where “an
official makes a knowing, intentional, or reckless false statement or omission
that causes the issuance of a warrant without probable cause that leads to the
removal of a child.” 933 F.3d at 486 (citing Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154,
155–56 (1978)). Bissell argues that Claridge’s affidavit is predicated on
fabricated evidence about the August 30 call for service and omits that the
police deputies did not believe Dumdie’s accusations, that one of the
children reported only verbal, not physical, fighting, and that Claridge
examined the children to be clean and without marks or bruises. But
Claridge’s affidavit plainly indicates that Dumdie recanted his allegations to
the police, and that one of the children reported verbal fighting alone. And
Bissell fails to acknowledge that the TDFPS report recommending the
removal of her children also relied on the uncontested fact that Bissell
physically fought with her stepdaughter in her home. Although Bissell puts
forth various justifications for her fighting with her stepdaughter, she does
not dispute that bruising on C.D. resulted from their altercation. In Marks
even though we held that there were “some potentially false statements” in
the affidavit, we concluded that probable cause in that case did not turn on
those statements because we found that the physical altercation was “the key
fact.” Marks, 933 F.3d at 489. Here, the affidavit included undisputed
information about physical disputes between Bissell and C.D., Dumdie’s
allegations of violence with the caveat that he later withdrew them, and
information about Bissell’s refusals to let TDFPS employees interview the
children. Bissell’s largely conclusory arguments fail to disprove qualified
immunity, as Bissell has not shown the alleged fabrications and omissions
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“were necessary to the finding of probable cause for the removal of the
children.” Marks, 933 F.3d 488.
The above cases, and Bissell’s failure to distinguish them, show that
Bissell’s right to family integrity was not well-established as applied to the
facts in this case at the time of her children’s temporary removal. She also
fails to show how her substantive and procedural due process rights were
violated on these facts, and is unable to show any genuine dispute of material
fact that would defeat summary judgment.
IV
For the reasons stated above, we AFFIRM the order of the district
court.
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