Jacob v. State

David and Joyce Jacob are the grandparents of three children who were taken into custody by the Office of Childrens Services (OCS) in 2000. Despite dozens of timely attempts to communicate with OCS seeking information about their grandchildren and requesting that the children be placed in their home rather than remain in foster care, and despite the Jacobs status as joint custodians of their grandchildren under an order of the superior court in Washington, the Jacobs were not given notice of and did not have an opportunity to be heard in any of the Child in Need of Aid (CINA) hearings which occurred during the first three and one-half years that their grandchildren were in OCSs custody. In 2004 the Jacobs retained counsel and brought a separate suit seeking declaratory judgment and injunctive relief regarding their rights to receive notice and be heard in their grandchildrens CINA proceedings. The superior court dismissed the suit, instructing the Jacobs to instead intervene in the CINA proceedings. They have since done so.