Lansner Kubitschek Schaffer & Zuccardy has filed a Petition for a Writ of Certiorari in the Supreme Court of the United States in Cofnejo v. Bell, to obtain reversal of the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit granting absolute immunity to attorneys for the NYC Administration for Children's Services. ACS filed a child abuse case against Ms. Cornejo in Queens County Family Court. Within two weeks, the ACS caseworkers had determined that Ms. Cornejo was not responsible for her child's death, and instructed their attorneys to withdraw the case against her and have the other child returned to her. The ACS attorneys ignored their clients' instructions and provided misleading information to the Family Court Judge. After ACS staff determined that the child had died of natural causes, the caseworkers again instructed their attorneys to withdraw the case, this time against both parents. Again, the attorneys disobeyed their clients' instructions and continued the case.
Carolyn was quoted in the April 25, 2010, Washington Post and CBSNEWS website and the April 22, 2010, Norwalk [Connecticut] News, in a story about "Flaws Found in State Child-Abuse Registries." by David Crary, an AP National Writer. "Nobody wants to be seen as soft on child abuse -- and that's gotten us where we are," said Carolyn Kubitschek, a New York attorney who has waged several court battles over the registries. "In the state of New York, it is still almost impossible to get off the list."
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"Anybody can call a child abuse hotline and report abuse -- anybody, including your ex-spouse who hates you, your landlord who's trying to evict you," Kubitschek said.
By law, she said, child protection services must investigate each call -- and their subsequent reports can lead to a person's placement on an abuse registry before they are notified or allowed to defend themselves.
On March 9, 2010, Carolyn Kubitschek moderated and spoke at a New York County Lawyers' Association Continuing Legal Education program on "New Developments in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Evidence - 2009-2010 Update." The three-hour program SDNY Magistrate Judge Ronald Ellis, James Mirro from the NYC Corporation Counsel's office, Melinda Rodon, and Evan Mandel. The program focused on new rules on Expert Disclosure, Attorney Work Product, and the calculation of time limits.
Jill Zuccardy will be a faculty member at the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges' training program for judges, "Continuing Judicial Skills in Domestic Violence Cases," in Chicago this June.
Dr. Deborah Esernio-Jenssen, the head of the Child Protective team at LIJ's Schneider Children's Hospital, has resigned her position. She is leaving the hospital – and New York – to take a position in Gainesville, Florida. Dr. Esernio-Jenssen is a defendant in three federal lawsuits in New York charging that she misdiagnoses child abuse, accuses parents incorrectly, and causes ACS and other child protective services agencies to remove children unnecessarily. One ACS supervisor testified in the federal lawsuit that she would not bring her own child to Schneider Children’s Hospital for fear of being wrongfully accused of child abuse. New York Family Court judges have begun rejecting her diagnoses and finding her to be unreliable. . The plaintiffs in the federal lawsuits are being represented by Lansner Kubitschek Schaffer & Zuccardy.