The Court of Appeals, in a full-fledged opinion by Judge Fahey, determined the statutory scheme for a potential child-neglect case referred to the Family Assessment Response Track (FAR track) does not provide a mechanism for expungement. Here a potential educational neglect case was referred to the FAR track and ultimately no action was taken by the caseworker and the case was closed. The petitioners requested expungement:
Petitioners contend that the right to seek early expungement may be inferred from the silence of Social Services Law § 427-a on this topic. We disagree. Principles of statutory construction teach that “the failure of the Legislature to include a substantive, significant prescription in a statute is a strong indication that its exclusion was intended” … . Moreover, this is not a case in which the two statutes that petitioners seek to interpret in identical fashion “relate to the same subject matter, contain identical language and were adopted together” … . Rather, the FAR track was created as a new and entirely separate means of addressing certain allegations of child abuse in a program geared toward the provision of social services, rather than an investigation assessing blame. In other words, the subject matter of the FAR track cannot be deemed identical to that of a traditional child abuse investigation. Matter of Corrigan v New York State Off. of Children & Family Servs., 2017 NY Slip Op 01020, CtApp 2-9-17
FAMILY LAW (EDUCATIONAL NEGLECT, EXPUNGEMENT NOT AVAILABLE FOR CHILD NEGLECT CASE REFERRED TO THE FAMILY ASSESSMENT RESPONSE TRACK (FAR TRACK))/CHILD ABUSE (EDUCATIONAL NEGLECT, EXPUNGEMENT NOT AVAILABLE FOR CHILD NEGLECT CASE REFERRED TO THE FAMILY ASSESSMENT RESPONSE TRACK (FAR TRACK))/CHILD NEGLECT (EDUCATIONAL NEGLECT, EXPUNGEMENT NOT AVAILABLE FOR CHILD NEGLECT CASE REFERRED TO THE FAMILY ASSESSMENT RESPONSE TRACK (FAR TRACK))/EDUCATIONAL NEGLECT (EXPUNGEMENT NOT AVAILABLE FOR CHILD NEGLECT CASE REFERRED TO THE FAMILY ASSESSMENT RESPONSE TRACK (FAR TRACK))/EXPUNGEMENT (EDUCATIONAL NEGLECT, EXPUNGEMENT NOT AVAILABLE FOR CHILD NEGLECT CASE REFERRED TO THE FAMILY ASSESSMENT RESPONSE TRACK (FAR TRACK))/SOCIAL SERVICES LAW (EDUCATIONAL NEGLECT, EXPUNGEMENT NOT AVAILABLE FOR CHILD NEGLECT CASE REFERRED TO THE FAMILY ASSESSMENT RESPONSE TRACK (FAR TRACK))/FAMILY ASSESSMENT RESPONSE TRACT (FAR TRACK) (EDUCATIONAL NEGLECT, EXPUNGEMENT NOT AVAILABLE FOR CHILD NEGLECT CASE REFERRED TO THE FAMILY ASSESSMENT RESPONSE TRACK (FAR TRACK))