(CN) - A couple who once hit their children with a wooden spoon on reality television can seek punitive damages from San Diego County, a federal judge ruled.
Mark and Melissa Mann first made national headlines in 2009 when they appeared on an episode of the now-canceled reality series "Supernanny" to learn new child-discipline techniques.
"At that time, the parents stated their intention to stop using wooden spoons to strike their children as a form a discipline, but apparently resumed using wooden spoons by the time the events giving rise to this action occurred in April 2010," U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel wrote Thursday. "The parents report they learned to use a wooden spoon in a parenting class offered at their church."
San Diego's Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA) had become involved after receiving a report from the preschool attended by the Manns' triplets on April 6, 2010, about possible child abuse.
The school's director had been concerned with a mark left on one of the triplets, N.E.H.M., by the wooden spoon Mark Mann had used to paddle the child a night earlier.
Mark had been alone with the 4-year-old triplets and their 6-year-old sister that evening when N.E.H.M. began misbehaving.
Mark said N.E.H.M. was splashing soapy water around the bathroom, and that he attempted to spank her with a wooden spoon, but missed and hit her lower back instead. The spoon left a red welt. Mark had also struck another one of the triplets, M.N.A.M., on the buttocks with a wooden spoon for splashing soapy water, also leaving a mark.
Nobody had been home when social worker Andrea Cisneros tried to visit the Mann house on April 6 so Cisneros spent 15 minutes interviewing the 6-year-old sibling, N.G.P.M., at school the next day.
N.G.P.M. denied any abuse at home, and said that her parents discipline her by giving her a "time out or a whoopin'," which she described as three or four spanks with her clothes on. She said the triplets were not given these "whoopin's."
That same day, Cisneros went back to the Mann home where she physically inspected the other children and interviewed them. She took pictures of N.E.H.M.'s lower back, listened to Melissa Mann's explanation of the father's "horrible" night with the children, and then left the house.
After consulting with her supervisor, Lisa Quadros, Cisneros immediately went back to the home to have Melissa Mann sign a voluntary safety plan that stated Mark Mann could not be left alone with the children.
Although distressed about it, Melissa Mann signed the paper after Cisneros told her the children could be removed from the home if she didn't. Melissa Mann later complained to Quadros about Cisneros' behavior.
Cisneros also interviewed Mark Mann at his job and got him to sign a safety plan in which he agreed not to physically discipline the children. The social worker told Mark that the children could be removed from the home if he did cooperate.
Cisneros then called Melissa Mann the next day to let her know that she needed to take pictures of the mark on M.N.A.M.'s buttocks. Though Melissa Mann asked Quadros to send a different social worker, Quadros refused. Melissa Mann then called someone higher up who agreed to send a more experienced social worker with Cisneros.