Safouane

*757 MEMORANDUM *

Acting pro se, Aziz and Sarah Safouane (the “Safouanes”) filed this action on April 10, 2000, alleging claims under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985(3), and supplemental state law claims against over one hundred defendants. They joined as plaintiffs their seven minor children and three paternal relatives. The district court concluded that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction as to some of the claims, the children and paternal relatives lacked standing, the Safouanes failed to state a claim as to other causes of action, no genuine issue of material fact remained in dispute as to some of the claims, and the Safouanes failed to prosecute their final remaining claim. We affirm the district court’s disposition of most of the federal claims but vacate the dismissal of the § 1983 claims arising out of the abuse by the foster parents to the extent they state a claim that the Safouanes were deprived of their constitutionally protected liberty interest in the companionship and society of their children. We also vacate the order dismissing the supplemental state law claim of malicious prosecution. Because the parties are familiar with the facts, we have not summarized them in…

dissenting in part:

I part company on Part X because the complaint alleges injury only to the children, who were properly dismissed as plaintiffs. The majority offers no explanation for how the foster parents’ alleged physical abuse of the children could have deprived the Safouanes of their parental liberty interest in companionship and society with the children. None appears in the complaint, in the parties’ arguments, or in our precedent. The majority nonetheless remands on the possibility that the Safouanes might be able to make some conceivable allegation or showing along these lines. I see no such possibility, and no need to remand.

Kelson v. City of Springfield, 767 F.2d 651, 655 (9th Cir.1985), and its relatives do not support the majority’s position. While these cases recognize a constitutionally protected parent-child companionship interest that can be pursued when that interest is terminated or severed by state action, the Safouanes’ interest (whatever its contours) wasn’t severed or terminated by the foster parents because that interest was already terminated by the state through protective custody actions and child welfare proceedings that are now over and done with.…