Court rules lawsuit can advance against DCF, service providers for rights violations of pregnant Vermonter 

Montpelier, VT – A Vermont judge ruled on the defendants’ motions to dismiss in A.V. v. Vermont Dept. for Children and Families, Copley Hospital, and Lund, allowing claims to move forward against all three defendants.

The case stems from an inappropriate DCF “assessment” of expectant parent A.V. in 2022. Based on unsubstantiated claims about her mental health and without ever speaking to her, the state obtained access to her confidential medical records, lied to a court to obtain custody of A.V.’s fetus, and attempted to force her to undergo an involuntary c-section. Immediately after A.V. had given birth—and before she could even hold her newborn baby—the state took custody of her child and fought for seven months to sever A.V.’s parental rights, until a judge finally reunited the family.

Caitlyn Garcia, Staff Attorney, Pregnancy Justice: “We should all be empowered to make our own choices when it comes to our bodies, our pregnancies, and our futures. Vermont’s Department for Children and Families denied our client her basic rights to privacy and bodily autonomy when it lied to a court to secure custody of her fetus based on untrue and unsubstantiated claims her mental health—and, when it engaged its secret surveillance network to uncover deeply sensitive information about her and her pregnancy. No one should endure this kind of intrusion into their lives or bodies, and we look forward to continuing to argue for the vindication of our client’s rights as this case moves forward.”

Notably, this ruling marks the first time a Vermont judge has considered Article 22, Vermont’s Reproductive Liberty Amendment, which was approved by an overwhelming majority of voters in 2022. Although he ruled that the plaintiff lacked standing to challenge the state’s “high risk pregnancy calendar,” Judge Battles found that this constitutional provision is “self-executing”—meaning that people can bring independent lawsuits to enforce it if they believe the government has violated their reproductive rights.

Monica Allard, Staff Attorney, ACLU of Vermont: “With this ruling, DCF and all direct service providers in the state should consider themselves on notice against future privacy rights violations. Providers must not disclose people’s confidential information to DCF, even if the agency asks for it, if they have no valid basis for making a mandated report. Doing so absolutely undermines the basic rights and dignity of Vermonters like our client, whose highly personal information was shared without her knowledge or consent as a part of DCF’s secret surveillance network—all so that it could conduct a so-called ‘assessment’ of her capacity to parent without ever speaking to her.”

The judge also rejected the state’s efforts to assert “sovereign immunity” to evade accountability, as well as the state’s “cramped reading” of Vermont’s Freedom of Choice Act. DCF argued that the Freedom of Choice Act protects only the decision to terminate a pregnancy, rather than the full range of reproductive decision-making, in an effort to justify its intervention into A.V.’s pregnancy, labor, and delivery. Furthermore, the court found that DCF is not authorized to discriminate against pregnant people based on a perceived disability, as it did in this case.

Sarah Star, Attorney: “In a state that passed the nation’s strongest constitutional protections for reproductive liberty just 3 years ago, it is truly shocking that DCF would argue it can intrude on the lives and bodies of expectant parents. This ruling highlights several opportunities to further strengthen state law so that no other expectant parent is subjected to the nightmare A.V. endured—for example, through stronger oversight of DCF’s family policing practices. Vermonters can and should expect lawmakers to act with urgency to do so in the upcoming legislative session.”

With this order, the case can now move to discovery.

A.V. is represented by the ACLU of Vermont, Pregnancy Justice, attorney Sarah Star, and Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer (US) LLP.

A copy of the court ruling and original filing is available here.