Can I Sue Child Protective Services In North Carolina?

For all intents and purposes, a person can sue Child Protective Services ("CPS") in North Carolina. But it is important to understand at least one key nuance: a lawsuit against CPS in North Carolina is really a lawsuit against the County of which the CPS agency your are suing is part.

Here's why. In North Carolina, CPS is part of each county's Department of Social Services ("DSS"). Each DSS is a department of the County, which makes DSS an agency of the County. As such, neither CPS nor DSS is a separate or independent public, corporate, or legal entity that has the legal capacity to be sued in its own name.

So, when the lawsuit you file is based on acts committed by CPS, the entity you would actually be suing would be the County under which that CPS agency works.

See Mally v. Durham County Department of Social Services, 58 N.C. App. 61, 66-68, 293 S.E.2d 285, 288-90 (1993); Wade v. Alamance Cnty. Dep't of Soc. Servs., No. 1:19CV619, 2020 WL 3846336 (M.D.N.C. July 8, 2020) (holding court cannot establish personal jurisdiction over a department of social services and there is no statutory basis for such suit). Therefore, a complaint against a county department of social services is, in essence, a complaint against the county, not the social services department per se.