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In New York, being placed on the Statewide Central Register of Child Abuse and Maltreatment (SCR) can upend a person’s life. An indicated report can cost someone their job and shut them out of entire fields—blocking work in childcare centers, schools, hospitals, law enforcement, and other professions that involve the possibility of contact with children. It can also prevent individuals from fostering or adopting, including stepping in as kinship caregivers for children in their own families.

New York law guarantees parents the right to challenge an indicated report and clear their names. But in practice, thousands of New Yorkers wait months—sometimes years—for a final decision. In the meantime, families are traumatized. Parents carry the stigma of being labeled abusive and families face mounting financial strain as job offers disappear, career paths stall, and some parents stop applying for work altogether. The delays are especially alarming because roughly 70% of parents who appeal their inclusion on the registry ultimately succeed in having their reports amended or sealed. In other words, thousands of people endure months or years of lost work, financial strain, and stigma based on findings that are later overturned. These harms fall disproportionately on Black and Latina mothers, who are more likely to be investigated and reported to the SCR in the first place.

The class action lawsuit represents three New York parents who have lost job opportunities as they wait for their appeal to be heard. The lawsuit alleges that the New York State Office of Children and Family Services’s policies and practices cause and exacerbate systemic delays that violate parents’ constitutional right to due process. It seeks class-wide relief to ensure that people placed on the SCR receive a fair, transparent, and timely appeals process, so New Yorkers can correct inaccurate records and clear their names without enduring years of unnecessary harm.