Lawyers Say Catherine Kassenoff’s Case—and Thousands of Others—Violate U.S. Constitutional Right to Due Process

During Catherine Kassenoff’s last call with her lawyer Harold Burke, she was distraught by the latest court ruling that terminated all contact with her daughters. Burke assured her they could fight the decision “just like Sylvia did” and thought he had convinced her to hang on in the battle they were waging in family court. He was wrong. 

Sylvia Lee lost custody of her children in 2012 after her husband claimed to “fear for their safety.” In 2016, the New York Court of Appeals reversed the decision.

Lawyers like Burke are taking up the fight for court reform on behalf of Catherine and other mothers, they said, because what’s happening violates federal civil rights law: Courts routinely deny women’s constitutional right to due process—a right the U.S. Supreme Court has stated includes “an opportunity to be heard”—and have lost their children because of it.