On Nov. 24, 2011, plaintiffs consisting of 5 children, ages 12, 10, 6, 4 and 2, were brought to the attention of the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services after the agency received a response referral with allegations of physical abuse and general neglect by the children’s parents. The 4-year-old child was previously brought to a hospital with a cut on his neck. His mother allegedly told the hospital staff that her son fell while running around the house with a butter knife in his hand. As a result, the Department of Public Social Services immediately initiated an investigation on Nov. 24, 2011. While the referral regarding the 4-year-old child was still being investigated, social services received a second referral regarding the same household on Nov. 29, 2011. That referral alleged that the 6-year-old child had a bruise on his face and that the children in the household were being brought to school unclean. As a result, a social worker, Dori Covarrubias, went to the children’s home that evening to interview the children and their parents. The parents were allegedly cooperative, and they allowed Covarrubias to enter the home, examine the children, inspect the home and take pictures. Upon completing her investigation at 10 p.m., Covarrubias seized and detained the five children from the custody and care of their parents, and removed the minor children from their family home. The five minor children, acting through their guardian ad litem, sued the operator of the Department of Public Social Services, the county of Riverside; Covarrubias; and Covarrubias’ supervisor, Karen Atkins, whom Covarrubias called and concurred with regarding the decision to seize the children. The children’s guardian alleged that the defendants’ wrongfully seized the children without first obtaining a warrant or establishing that exigent circumstances existed and that the defendants’ actions constituted violations of the Fourth Amendment. Plaintiffs’ counsel contended that Covarrubias spent a substantial amount of time in the plaintiffs’ home interviewing the 6-year-old child, and his mother and father, but that Covarrubias did not bother to interview the older children (the 12-year-old and the 10-year-old). Counsel asserted that there was no evidence of any sort to suggest that the older children or the youngest child, the 2-year-old, had sustained any injury at all, nor was there any “reasonable and articulable evidence” to suggest that the 6-year-old child and/or the 4-year-old child had sustained their at the hands of either of their parents., The plaintiff children claimed that they suffer from emotional distress as a result of being out of the care of their parents. However, they were eventually returned to their parents’ care. Defense counsel disputed the plaintiffs’ alleged psychological , noting that the children were only out of their parents’ care for a short period of time.