Tennessee DCS workers can be held liable for role in taking kids from parents after traffic stop

Attorney Courtney Teasley, at left, with Bianca Clayborne and one of Clayborne's children outside the Coffee County Justice Center on March 20, 2023. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Three employees of the Department of Children’s Services can be held liable for their conduct after a traffic stop led to five small children being taken from their mother last year, a federal judge ruled.

The court’s decision comes in a civil lawsuit brought by Bianca Clayborne on behalf of herself and her five children, who were placed in a series of foster homes for nearly two months after the February 2023 stop. The children were 7, 5, 3, 2 and four months old at the time.

Tennessee Highway Patrol officers initially pulled over Clayborne and her partner, Deonte Williams, for a slowpoke violation and driving with tinted windows as the family traveled Interstate 24 through Tennessee on their way to a family funeral in Illinois from their Georgia home.

At the stop, officers smelled marijuana and conducted a search, finding fewer than five grams of marijuana, THP records show. The offense is a misdemeanor in Tennessee typically resulting in a citation and fine, not an arrest.

Troopers, however, arrested Williams, gave Clayborne a citation and told her she was free to leave with the children.

Hours after the traffic stop, as Clayborne waited to bond Williams out of jail, the children were taken from her side and ushered away in waiting vehicles.

The escalation from misdemeanor traffic stop to the forced removal of the children from their mother raised questions about whether the family — who is Black —received unequal treatment while driving through a largely white and rural Tennessee community.

Suit claims DCS, law enforcement terrorized family

Clayborne filed suit earlier this year naming the three DCS employees, Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers and Coffee County sheriff’s deputies involved.

“These public officials illegally tore apart and terrorized (Bianca) Clayborne’s family. They acted outrageously and unlawfully. Their actions caused severe emotional trauma to Clayborne and each of her five children,” the lawsuit said.

A Black family fights to get their kids back from Tennessee Department of Children’s Services

DCS in its legal response asked for the workers to be dismissed from the suit, asserting they had immunity for acting in their official capacities.

The court ruling earlier this month allows Clayborne’s attorneys to press forward with claims the DCS workers violated the family’s Fourth Amendment Constitutional protections against unlawful search and seizures.

The ruling also allows Clayborne’s legal claims of false arrest and false imprisonment under Tennessee law to go forward against the DCS workers.

U.S. District Judge Clifton Corker dismissed Clayborne’s separate claims that the actions of DCS employees, in seeking an emergency court order to remove the children, violated her Constitutional guarantees to due process.

The workers had sought an emergency court order giving them the authority to take the children in the hours after the traffic stop. They never told Clayborne about the emergency court hearing, nor gave her a chance to respond, even though the workers at the time were with Clayborne at the county justice center.

Those actions are protected by absolute immunity for government officials acting in the capacity of legal advocates, the court ruled.

A spokesperson for DCS declined to comment on pending litigation and an attorney for Clayborne and her children could not be reached last week. The family is represented by a trio of Nashville civil rights attorneys, including Tricia Herzfeld, Abby Rubenfeld and Anthony Orlandi.

‘A good mother’

The case drew national attention last year after a Lookout story, relying on law enforcement reports, juvenile court filings and emails between DCS officials and the family’s attorneys, detailed the events.

The records showed that DCS was initially informed that both Clayborne and Williams had been arrested at the traffic stop — a scenario that would require social workers to step in and care for the children.

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Bodycam video quoted in court filings described one trooper telling two DCS employees that Clayborne “was a good mother” “the kids were not being neglected or abused” and “it would be best for everyone for Clayborne to stay with the children.”

The workers nevertheless pursued an emergency court order in a nearby courtroom giving them the power to take the children into state custody.

They also approached Clayborne in the parking lot of the jail, where she had driven with the children to wait for Williams’ release.

They asked Clayborne to leave the children in the car to go to a nearly restroom to produce a urine sample for a drug test.

When Clayborne refused — she said later she was afraid of what the workers would do if she left her children with them — she tried to produce one in the car, lowering her pants and underwear while a social worker sat in the passenger seat beside her.

When she couldn’t urinate, the caseworker told her she had “made matters worse.” Coffee County officers then placed spike strips around the family’s car, preventing them from leaving.

Inside the criminal justice center, where Clayborne had gone inside with her children to post bail, law enforcement officers approached her, ordered her not to reach for her baby. They took all five children into a waiting vehicle as she wept.

At the couple’s first juvenile court appearance days later, Clayborne and Williams were asked to submit to urine drug tests.

Williams tests positive for THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. Clayborne, who denied she consumed marijuana, tested negative.

The records showed they were then asked to submit to rapid hair follicle tests.

The results came back positive for both of them: the test had detected methamphetamines, fentanyl and oxycodone. Williams and Clayborned denied using those substances.

Mother of five kids taken by DCS after traffic stop files lawsuit

A Lookout investigation found that the rapid hair follicle test used on the parents was not court-admissible, according to the Coffee County Court’s own administrator. An expert said the rapid machines can be unreliable and best practice calls for positive tests to be rerun in certified laboratories.

DCS nevertheless introduced the tests in court as part of their petition seeking a ruling that the children had been severely abused.

Attorneys for DCS also sought sanctions against the family’s attorneys and criminal prosecution of the parents for speaking publicly about the case.

The children were returned 55 days after they were separated from their parents. The children had initially been separated from one another in different foster homes before being reunited in the home of a family friend who agreed to become an emergency foster care provide.

Williams pled guilty to one misdemeanor simple possession charge. Charges against Clayborne were dropped.

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