COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA
Record No. 1708-25-3
CAROLINE PARR
v.
AMHERST COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES
Present: Judges Chaney, Callins and Bernhard
Argued by videoconference
Opinion Issued September 8, 2026
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF AMHERST COUNTY
Jeffrey P. Bennett, Judge
Monica L. Mroz; Brittany M. Haddox (Monica Mroz Law, LLC; Haddox Law, PLLC, on briefs), for appellant.
Michael J. Brickhill (David P. Mitchel; Michael J. Brickhill, P.C., on brief), for appellee.
PUBLISHED OPINION BY
JUDGE DAVID BERNHARD
Caroline Parr appeals the dismissal of her petitions, brought under Code § 63.2-1514(D),
for release of the investigative records underlying two unfounded complaints of child abuse
arising from her employment as a public school teacher. The section releases those records only
where the circuit court finds a “reasonable question of fact” as to whether the report or complaint
was made in bad faith or with malicious intent. Parr contends the circuit court misconstrued that
threshold and that her evidence of a pattern of employment retaliation satisfies it.
On an issue of first impression, this Court construes that phrase according to its plain and
ordinary meaning: the question must be one capable of being answered by demonstration rather
than a matter of unverifiable opinion, and one the circumstances reasonably raise. The
connection the section requires is causal. Because the finding is directed to the making of the report, something before the circuit court must bear on whether the bad faith alleged produced
that making; a motive untethered to it raises no question of fact the section reaches. The
threshold therefore does not require proof of bad faith; it does require more than supposition, and
more than the belief every petition must assert. The report need not have been conveyed to the
local department by the person alleged to have acted in bad faith; the inquiry is directed to the
person alleged to have originated it, whether or not that person transmitted it.
The circuit court makes that determination from the reasons set forth in the petition, the
evidence presented in support of it, and the investigative records furnished for in camera review.
The records are not merely produced to the circuit court; that court weighs them against the
reasons the petition sets forth. The circuit court may find an account unworthy of belief on a
basis in the materials, but it may not choose between accounts that could each be believed. This
opinion addresses only the first of the two conditions the subsection imposes for disclosure; the
circuit court did not reach the second, which is directed to the safety of the person who made the
report.
The meaning of the statutory phrase is reviewed de novo. Whether the materials raised
such a question is the circuit court’s determination, and it is upheld unless plainly wrong or
without evidence to support it. Because the materials before the circuit court did not compel a
finding that either complaint cleared that threshold, this Court affirms the judgment of the circuit
court.
BACKGROUND1
Parr was employed with Nelson County Public Schools beginning in August 1992, with a
break from 1998 to 2002; she retired in December 2024. In her final years of teaching, Parr taught
1
This opinion does not unseal any portion of the investigative records furnished for in camera review; the sealed record remains sealed in its entirety. Cf. Levick v. MacDougall, 294 Va. 283, 288 n.1 (2017) (unsealing only those facts mentioned in the opinion and leaving the
-2-three- and four-year-olds for the Virginia Preschool Initiative (“VPI”) program at Tye River
Elementary School. Because state regulation required two adults to be present in the classroom at
all times, an instructional assistant was assigned to work with her. Parr met or exceeded
performance expectations and received accolades, including the 2019-2020 Teacher of the Year
award. She also held roles on the Superintendent’s Advisory Council for several years.
Parr was the subject of two complaints of child abuse in 2022 and 2024. Amherst County
Department of Social Services (“ACDSS”) investigated each complaint and entered an
“unfounded” disposition. Due to a conflict of interest, the Nelson County Department of Social
Services (“NCDSS”) had transferred the complaints to ACDSS for investigation and disposition.
Believing the complaints were made in bad faith and with malicious intent, Parr filed petitions,
pursuant to Code § 63.2-1514(D), for the release of investigative records to “begin the process of
pursuing . . . civil remedies to clear her name.” She filed one petition for each complaint, the
first-filed petition concerning the more recent of the two. ACDSS took no position on the
petitions, asserting in its responsive pleadings that the “only job” of a local agency is to produce
the records for the court’s review. The court held a hearing on August 28, 2025.2 Parr presented
evidence concerning both petitions.
remainder of the record sealed). Amherst County Department of Social Services (“ACDSS”) took no position below and has no right under Code § 63.2-1514(D) to present evidence, though it has addressed the standard of review and the construction of the phrase on appeal. Because the materials the circuit court weighed include records this opinion does not describe, the facts are stated as that court could have found them. Cf. Congdon v. Congdon, 40 Va. App. 255, 258 (2003).
2
At the hearing, ACDSS, through counsel, stated, “I don’t think either the statute or the case law, interpreting it, really gives us much to do, other than produce the records and allow the Court to maturely consider the records in camera and then any evidence that the petitioner has to present . . . .”
-3-I. The First Complaint
The June 18, 2025 petition outlined that Tanya Cook Carter became the principal at Tye
River Elementary School during the 2021-2022 school year and that Parr “reported to Principal
Cook Carter on more than one occasion, that under [her] leadership, the school was out of
compliance with state regulation concerning the preschool program.” Parr testified that the
principal would “repeatedly . . . pull [Parr’s] assistant for duties or sometimes to cover another
teacher.” The violations allegedly persisted, prompting Parr to share her concerns with the
Director of Instruction; the VPI Program Director; her school board member; and the interim
superintendent. The petition indicated that Parr’s husband, a member of the Nelson County
Board of Supervisors, discussed the matter with the superintendent, who “forcefully told [him] to
‘back off’” and ceased all communications thereafter. Her husband had served on the school
board from 2003 to 2019, joining the Board of Supervisors on January 1, 2020. The petition
alleged that Parr “began experiencing retaliation, which included the school system making bad
faith and malicious reports of alleged abuse and neglect” against her.
In the spring of 2022, Parr was asked by a bus driver to speak with a student, whose sibling
she previously taught, about his misbehavior on the bus.3 Parr saw the student in the hallway, “got
down on his level,” and told him, “It is dangerous for the bus driver, it’s dangerous for the other
children.” Parr testified that the student’s teacher spoke with the principal and then with the
student’s grandmother, who came to the school because Parr had corrected her grandson, who was
no longer in Parr’s class. The petition alleged that when the student’s guardian spoke to Principal
Cook Carter about the verbal reprimand, “without any basis whatsoever, [the principal] advised
the guardian to file a police report.”
3
The petition described the episode as involving two students.
-4-The guardian allegedly “followed the [s]chool’s advice.” As a result, Parr was put on
administrative leave for the remainder of the year while she underwent police and ACDSS
investigations, both of which returned “unfounded.” Parr suspected that Principal Cook Carter
instigated the complaint as a retaliatory act for Parr’s continued reports of regulatory violations.
Parr alleged that the principal had prior access to video footage of the incident, showing no
corroboration of abuse.
II. The Second Complaint
The May 2, 2025 petition recited the same history and described additional events leading
up to the second complaint. Specifically, it alleged that Superintendent Amanda Hester “directed”
Principal Heather Cofflin, who replaced Principal Cook Carter for the 2023-2024 school year, to
“place . . . Parr on an unwarranted Plan of Improvement.” Parr explained that a principal commonly
observes and works with a teacher before imposing such a plan and that Principal Cofflin had never
supervised or observed her. Parr completed the plan, enabling her to return under continuing
contract the following school year. Within the first month, however, Parr “was again placed on
leave and reported to [NCDSS] for suspected abuse and neglect.”
Parr alleged the complaint stemmed from an incident where she verbally reprimanded a
student for pushing another off a playground structure. Parr explained that she “bent down” to the
student’s level, addressed him, and displayed visual cards to reinforce the correction. “Upset with
the reprimand,” the student “flopped back” on the ground. Parr denied pushing the child.
The petition indicated that “[t]hree other school employees witnessed the incident in some
part, and not a single one reported that they had seen . . . Parr push the child down.” Also,
“Principal Cofflin reviewed video footage and found no conclusive evidence that . . . Parr had
pushed the child down. Nevertheless, the [s]chool reported . . . Parr to [NCDSS].” ACDSS and
police investigated the matter, resulting in determinations that the complaint was “unfounded.”
-5-Parr testified that she later learned Kelly Woodson, her instructional assistant who was
present during the incident, had told Principal Cofflin and others that Parr pushed the student.
Parr, having accessed police records through a Virginia Freedom of Information Act request,
deduced from the principal’s statement that Woodson was the complainant. According to Parr,
Woodson later told the police that she did not see Parr push the child. Parr claimed Woodson
reported the push falsely, and did so because she expected to become the lead teacher. When
Parr retired, Woodson filled in for the remainder of the school year, receiving a stipend rather
than the salary the position carried; she was not licensed for it, and the school hired a licensed
teacher the following year. The petition further alleged that “[t]he day that [AC]DSS disclosed
that the report was unfounded, . . . Woodson left a note for the [p]rincipal stating, ‘there is a
weighted backpack in . . . Parr’s closet. Signed, a concerned adult.’”4
At the hearing, Parr testified that she met with Superintendent Hester at the start of the
school year to discuss the noncompliance issues; that Superintendent Hester was unreceptive to her
concerns; and that thereafter, she noticeably shunned Parr at school meetings and social events and
removed her from the Superintendent’s Advisory Council. Parr further testified that a human
resources official said, “Well, we have to do something to you,” following the “unfounded” 2022
complaint, and that the school replaced her long-time instructional assistant with Woodson, whose
prior experience had been working with fifth graders, making Parr’s job more difficult. Parr retired,
earlier than planned, on belief that the retaliation against her would continue.
Parr claimed the foregoing evidence established that the complaints were made in bad faith.
She disclaimed any intent to use the records to act outside the law against the complainants,
intending only to pursue the legal remedies available to her. The judge asked the parties questions,
4
Parr alleged that “[i]n preschool practice, a weighted backpack is a sensory tool that provides comfort to children with certain issues and helps them to settle down, particularly at naptime.”
-6-particularly about who served as a mandatory reporter in the school setting. On September 5, 2025,
the circuit court issued a final order, stating, in pertinent part:
Upon consideration of the evidence and argument presented in
open court on August 28, 2025, as well as an in camera review of
all ACDSS records provided to the Court, the Court finds the
Plaintiff has failed to meet her burden of establishing a reasonable
question of fact as to whether the unfounded reports or complaints
were made with bad faith or malicious intent.
The petitions were dismissed with prejudice. Parr appealed.
ANALYSIS
Parr disputes the circuit court’s determination that she failed to establish a reasonable
question of fact as to whether the unfounded reports were made in bad faith or with malicious
intent. Two standards govern that challenge. The meaning of “reasonable question of fact” is a
question of statutory construction, reviewed de novo. VACORP v. Young, 298 Va. 490, 494
(2020). Whether the materials before the circuit court raised such a question, once the phrase is
correctly construed, is a determination this Court does not make in the first instance; it is upheld
unless it is plainly wrong or without evidence to support it. Code § 8.01-680. Part III below sets
out how that review proceeds.5
“When construing a statute, [this Court’s] primary objective is ‘to ascertain and give
effect to legislative intent,’ as expressed by the language used in the statute.” Khan v. McAlister,
87 Va. App. 458, 466 (2026) (alteration in original) (quoting Cuccinelli v. Rector & Visitors of the
5
Parr contends the determination is reviewed de novo in its entirety, and alternatively as a mixed question of law and fact. Review of a mixed question accords deference to the circuit court’s findings of historical fact while examining questions of law de novo. Butler v. Stegmaier, 77 Va. App. 115, 124-25 (2023). Whether the materials before the circuit court raised the question the section describes is not a question of law reviewed on those terms; the circuit court weighed the reasons, the evidence, and the records against one another, and its determination is reviewed as stated above. Relying on In re Brown, 289 Va. 343, 347 (2015), ACDSS contends the standard is abuse of discretion. But Brown concerned an application for a change of name under Code § 8.01-217 and does not construe this statute or any comparable provision; it does not supply the standard here.
-7-Univ. of Va., 283 Va. 420, 425 (2012)). If the language is unambiguous, this Court applies its
plain meaning, unless doing so would render an absurd result. Norfolk Dep’t of Hum. Servs. v.
Goldberg, 81 Va. App. 667, 676 (2024). “[W]hen a particular word in a statute is not defined
therein, a court must give it its ordinary meaning,” derived from its use in context. Bista v.
Commonwealth, 78 Va. App. 391, 419 (2023) (en banc) (quoting Moyer v. Commonwealth, 33
Va. App. 8, 35 (2000) (en banc)); Smith v. Commonwealth, 85 Va. App. 483, 493-94 (2025)
(quoting Bista, 78 Va. App. at 419). “[D]ictionary definitions may be consulted” to ascertain such
meaning. Peed v. Va. Dep’t of Transp., 72 Va. App. 686, 696 (2021). If the language is deemed
ambiguous, that is, subject to multiple reasonable interpretations, then this Court “may consider
factors other than the text itself, ‘such as the purpose, reason, and spirit of the law’ in determining
the statute’s meaning.” Goldberg, 81 Va. App. at 676 (quoting Eley v. Commonwealth, 70
Va. App. 158, 164 (2019)).
I. The Statutory Framework
Reports of child abuse are generally confidential by statute. Goldberg, 81 Va. App. at
676; see Code § 63.2-104. Code § 63.2-1514(D) provides a narrow exception, allowing “the
subject of an unfounded report or complaint made pursuant to this chapter who believes that such
report or complaint was made in bad faith or with malicious intent” to petition the circuit court
for the release of investigative records. Code § 63.2-1514(D) (emphases added). The petition
“shall specifically set forth the reasons” of bad faith or malicious intent. Id. (emphasis added).
Upon the filing of such petition, “the circuit court shall request and the local department shall
provide to the circuit court its records . . . for the circuit court’s in camera review.” Id.
(emphases added). The petitioner is entitled to present evidence to support the petition. Id.; see
Gloucester Cnty. Dep’t of Soc. Servs. v. Kennedy, 256 Va. 400, 404 (1998) (holding the
department has no identical right to present evidence under the predecessor statute). Code
-8-§ 63.2-1514(D), in language materially identical to the statute in force at the time of Gloucester,
states,
If the circuit court determines that there is a reasonable question of
fact as to whether the report or complaint was made in bad faith or
with malicious intent and that disclosure of the identity of the
complainant would not be likely to endanger the life or safety of
the complainant, it shall provide to the petitioner a copy of the
records of the investigation or family assessment. The original
records shall be subject to discovery in any subsequent civil action
regarding the making of a complaint or report in bad faith or with
malicious intent.
Id. (emphases added). Cf. Gloucester, 256 Va. at 402 (quoting former Code § 63.1-248.5:1(C)).
The statute therefore imposes two separate requirements for application of the exception. This
opinion addresses only the first. The complainant to whom the second requirement refers is the
person who made the report, not the petitioner who seeks the records; it is the complainant’s
identity that disclosure would reveal. Code § 63.2-1514(D). Because the circuit court did not
reach that requirement, this opinion construes it no further.
The Supreme Court of Virginia has described the predecessor provision as “a summary
procedure to enable a person wrongfully accused of child abuse or neglect to obtain the details of
the accusation from the local social services department that investigated the ill-founded charge.”
Gloucester, 256 Va. at 404. Read together with subsection (D)’s final sentence, the procedure is
a step toward a civil action, not the action itself.
II. The Meaning of “Reasonable Question of Fact”
Parr contends the court misinterpreted the statutory standard, asserting that a “reasonable
question of fact” is akin to reasonable suspicion, requiring the petitioner to present articulable
facts and the court to examine the totality of the circumstances. Unaware of the contents of the
records under seal, Parr claims her alleged facts demonstrate a pattern of employment retaliation
sufficient to support a finding that the complaints of child abuse were made in bad faith and with
-9-malice. ACDSS did not address the definitional question in its pleadings. At oral argument, it
answered that the reasonable-suspicion standard Parr proposes is too low and that the court
should examine both the evidence and the investigative file in determining whether a reasonable
question of fact exists. Parr agreed that the court examines both, but disputed its authority to
weigh the file against her evidence, a position addressed in Part III below.
The statute does not define a “reasonable question of fact.” The plain and ordinary
meaning of the text controls. A “question of fact” is “[a]n issue capable of being answered by way
of demonstration, as opposed to a question of unverifiable opinion.” Question of Fact, Black’s Law
Dictionary (12th ed. 2024) (emphases added). That definition governs here. The dictionary also
gives a further sense of “[a] disputed issue to be resolved by . . . the judge,” id., but that sense
describes only the allocation of a contested issue to a factfinder; Code § 63.2-1514(D) presupposes
that allocation and asks instead what quality of question suffices: one subject to demonstration, not
mere supposition. The provision conditions disclosure not just on any question of fact but on a
reasonable one. “Reasonable” denotes “[r]eflecting good judgment; fair and proper under the
circumstances; rational, sound, and sensible.” Reasonable, Black’s Law Dictionary, supra6; see
Miller v. Commonwealth, 64 Va. App. 527, 541 (2015) (“The word ‘reasonable,’ in ordinary usage,
‘means “fair; just; ordinary or usual; not immoderate . . . ; not capricious or arbitrary.”’” (quoting
Sydnor Pump & Well Co. v. Taylor, 201 Va. 311, 317-18 (1959))).
Considering the full statutory language of the required finding, a “reasonable question of
fact as to whether the [unfounded] report or complaint was made in bad faith or with malicious
intent,” the circuit court is directed to determine whether the circumstances reasonably raise that
6
“In one sense the word [reasonable] describes the proper use of the reasoning power, and in another it is no more than a word of assessment.” Reasonable, Black’s Law Dictionary, supra (emphasis added) (quoting Patrick Devlin, The Judge 134 (1979)). The word carries the first sense here: the section directs the circuit court to a determination about the materials before it, not to an unguided assessment.
- 10 -question. Code § 63.2-1514(D). Two features of the text fix the object of that inquiry. The
required finding is that the report or complaint “was made in bad faith or with malicious intent,” and
the subsection’s final sentence describes the civil action it contemplates as one “regarding the
making of a complaint or report in bad faith or with malicious intent.” Id. (emphases added). The
connection the section requires is causal. It reaches bad faith in the causing of the report, not bad
faith in the circumstances surrounding it: the alleged motive must bear on the decision that a report
be made, not merely have been present in the same institution, at the same time, in the same people.
The materials need not establish that the motive produced the report; they must raise a reasonable
question whether it did.
The threshold does not require proof. A petitioner need not establish bad faith or
malicious intent to obtain the records; were it otherwise, the summary procedure would require
what it exists to make possible. But neither is the threshold satisfied by the assertion of belief
alone, which every petition must contain. Code § 63.2-1514(D).
The surrounding chapter supplies the content of those terms. A person making a report or
complaint of suspected abuse is immune from civil and criminal liability unless it is proven that
the person acted in bad faith or with malicious intent. Code § 63.2-1512. One who makes or
causes to be made a knowingly false report of child abuse or neglect is guilty of a Class 1
misdemeanor for a first offense. Code § 63.2-1513(A). Bad faith or malicious intent thus refers
to a report advanced with knowledge of its falsity, id., or for a controlling purpose other than the
protection of a child. Cf. Hudson v. Lanier, 255 Va. 330, 333 (1998) (defining malice, in the
malicious prosecution context, “as any controlling motive other than a good faith desire to
further the ends of justice, enforce obedience to the criminal laws, suppress crime, or see that the
guilty are punished”). The section states the two disjunctively, and this opinion does not decide
whether they describe distinct states of mind; on these materials the inquiry is the same under
- 11 -either. This Court does not draw from Code § 63.2-1513 the negative implication rejected in
Goldberg7; these sections are consulted for the content of the statutory terms, not for the scope of
the exception. Part IV draws on Code § 63.2-1513(A) for the same purpose: to identify whose
bad faith the terms describe, not to enlarge or contract the class of petitioners the exception
serves.
An “unfounded” disposition does not itself show bad faith or malicious intent. The
disposition means only that a review of the facts did not show abuse or neglect by a
preponderance of the evidence, 22 VAC 40-705-10; it does not indicate that the report was
advanced without a good faith basis. Because the section is available only to the subject of an
unfounded report, the disposition is the circumstance that opens the procedure. It is not itself a
circumstance bearing on bad faith.
III. The Materials Considered and the Scope of Review
In context, subsection (D) outlines the information with which the court is to make such a
determination: (1) the “reasons” of bad faith or malicious intent “set forth” under the petition, (2)
the records statutorily mandated to be inspected in camera by the court, and (3) any “evidence”
presented in support of the petition. See Code § 63.2-1514(D).
The circuit court is not confined to the petition. The statute authorizes the court “to
determine from its review of the records of investigation” whether the report or complaint was
made in bad faith or with malicious intent. Gloucester, 256 Va. at 404. The records furnished
under the section are thus not merely produced to the circuit court; that court weighs them
7
The department there argued that because Code § 63.2-1513(A) expressly reaches one who “causes to be made” a false report while Code § 63.2-1514(D) does not, the omission confined the exception to reports conveyed directly to a local department. Goldberg declined to draw that inference, reasoning that the two provisions serve different ends—one criminal liability, the other access to records—and that the purpose of the disclosure provision overcame the implication of its silence. Goldberg, 81 Va. App. at 682-85.
- 12 -against the reasons the petition sets forth. Parr’s contrary position—that the circuit court may
test the sufficiency of her stated reasons but may not measure them against the file—cannot be
reconciled with that language, and would leave the mandatory production requirement without
function. It follows that a petition adequate on its face may fail where the records foreclose the
motive alleged and that the records may equally supply what the petitioner could not have known
to allege.
Weighing is not resolving. The section asks whether the materials raise a reasonable
question of fact, not which account of the report’s making is the better one. Records that merely
supply an innocent explanation alongside the petitioner’s do not defeat the threshold, because
competing accounts that could each be believed are what a question of fact consists of. The
circuit court is not required, however, to take the petition as it finds it. The court may conclude
that the reasons offered, or the evidence presented in support of them, are unworthy of belief—a
conclusion that must rest on something in the materials rather than on the court’s preference
among accounts—and an account the court does not believe on that basis raises no reasonable
question. What the court may not do is choose between accounts that could each be believed;
that choice is made in the civil action the final sentence of the subsection contemplates. The
records defeat the threshold only where they leave no reasonable question as to whether the
report was made in bad faith or with malicious intent, not merely because they disclose a basis
for the report the petitioner did not allege. The circuit court determines whether such a question
exists; it does not answer it.
On appeal, this Court examines the investigative records, which are part of the appellate
record, together with the evidence, to assess whether the circuit court’s determination is
supported. Gloucester, 256 Va. at 404. Where, as here, the determination is that the petitioner
did not carry her burden, the finding is upheld unless it is plainly wrong or without evidence to
- 13 -support it. Code § 8.01-680. Cf. Hudson, 255 Va. at 333-34 (applying that standard to a trial
court’s determination that a plaintiff failed to prove malice).
The circuit court did not explain how it understood the statutory phrase, and it was not
required to. A court speaks through its orders, and its order recites the finding the section calls
for: that the petitioner failed to establish a reasonable question of fact as to whether the
unfounded reports or complaints were made in bad faith or with malicious intent. Absent clear
evidence to the contrary in the record, its judgment comes to this Court with a presumption that
the law was correctly applied to the facts. Yarborough v. Commonwealth, 217 Va. 971, 978
(1977); see Wymer v. Commonwealth, 12 Va. App. 294, 296 (1991). The record is consistent
with that presumption: the court’s questions at the hearing were directed to who bore
mandatory-reporter duties in the school setting, an inquiry the section’s focus on the making of
the report makes relevant. That standard does not run in one direction only. Had the circuit
court found the threshold met, its determination would be reviewed on the same terms.
A petitioner cannot see the materials on which she may lose—a feature of the procedure
the General Assembly designed, not an oversight in it. Both parties observe that a petitioner in
Parr’s position argues at a disadvantage: had either investigation resulted in a founded
disposition, Parr would have been entitled on administrative appeal to the information underlying
it, excepting the identity of the reporter, information endangering a child, and other categories
withheld by regulation. Code § 63.2-1526(A); 22 VAC 40-705-190(A); see
22 VAC 40-705-160(D). Because both complaints were unfounded at the initial stage, no such
access arose. The asymmetry is real, and it explains in part why the threshold is set at a
“reasonable question of fact” rather than at proof. But the section commits the testing of the
allegations to the circuit court rather than to the petitioner precisely because the records are
confidential, and it conditions their release on a second finding directed to the complainant’s
- 14 -safety. Where both conditions are met, the records issue as of course. The asymmetry does not
convert the threshold into one the petition satisfies by its own terms; deference to the circuit
court’s determination on the first condition is deference to the body the statute charges with
reviewing what the petitioner cannot. The section thus sets a low threshold, directs it to a causal
question, and commits the testing of that question to a court with materials the petitioner cannot
see. The first keeps the remedy available to a petitioner who cannot prove what she suspects; the
second leaves intact the confidentiality the chapter otherwise establishes, Code § 63.2-104; and
the third is why the testing is the circuit court’s rather than Parr’s.
That asymmetry marks review in this Court as well. Neither party has seen the records
this Court examines, so review in such a case reports a conclusion the parties cannot measure
against the materials that produced it. That is the procedure the General Assembly designed: it
conditioned disclosure on findings drawn from a file the circuit court alone may read, and
appellate review of those findings can be no more public than the findings themselves.
IV. The Locus of the Bad-Faith Inquiry
The report or complaint need not have been conveyed to the local department by the
person alleged to have acted in bad faith. This Court has held that Code § 63.2-1514(D) reaches
a report originating with a source who acted maliciously or in bad faith and relayed to the
department by a mandatory reporter. Goldberg, 81 Va. App. at 685. The chapter points the
same way: Code § 63.2-1513(A) reaches one who “makes or causes to be made” a report of child
abuse or neglect known to be false, language that contemplates a false report set in motion by
one person and conveyed by another. This Court said as much in recognizing the broader
reading: the bad faith and malicious intent requirements “ensure that the statute cannot be
stretched to cover an allegation made to an intermediary without intending that the intermediary
relay the same to the Department.” Goldberg, 81 Va. App. at 680 n.4. The inquiry is
- 15 -accordingly directed to the person alleged to have originated the report, whether or not that
person transmitted it.
Parr argues that under Goldberg her suspicions need not be grounded in the investigative
file, because a report made in bad faith may be relayed through a mandatory reporter. That case
illustrates such a showing. There, a father suspected of abuse alleged that the unfounded report
was made either explicitly or anonymously by his wife’s mother, or by a family member acting
on false information the mother supplied, and that the report contained information known only
to the mother. The wife testified at the hearing to video evidence of the mother attempting to
make the child act irregularly in a manner that would substantiate the allegations. Id. at 674-75.
Those materials supplied the connection between the alleged originator and the report that the
section contemplates. Goldberg illustrates a sufficient connection, not the only one. The
connection the section requires may be supplied in other ways; a petitioner need not reproduce
the particular proof that sufficed there.
Where the originator is alleged to be someone other than the reporter, however, the
section still requires materials from which the court can find a reasonable question of fact as to
whether the report was so originated; a suspicion unsupported by the petition, the evidence, or
the records does not meet the threshold merely because an intermediary conveyed the report.
Nor is the circuit court’s review confined to the origin the petition happens to name. The
materials the section directs to that court may disclose a source, or a path of transmission, that
the petitioner could not have identified from outside the file, and the court considers what the
records show as well as what the petition alleges. A petitioner’s inability to see the file is
therefore not a reason to name every person who might have been involved; the section asks for
reasons, not for a catalog of possible accusations. Code § 63.2-1514(D). As explained below,
the difficulty with Parr’s petitions is not the identity of the transmitting reporter but whether the
- 16 -materials the circuit court weighed left a reasonable question as to the origin she ascribes to the
reports.
V. Application
Parr ascribes both complaints of abuse to a campaign of retaliation originating in her
reports of regulatory noncompliance: as to the first, that the principal instigated it; as to the
second, that her instructional assistant falsely accused her to obtain the position she expected and
that the school relayed the accusation. Under the construction stated above, the question is not
whether those allegations are true, but whether the materials before the circuit court raised a
reasonable question of fact as to whether either report was made in bad faith or with malicious
intent. The petitions allege more than motive: they allege conduct that, if credited, bears on the
making of the reports and not merely on the employment history surrounding them. Whether to
credit them was for the circuit court, on the terms Part III sets out.
As to the first complaint, the origin Parr ascribes is Principal Cook Carter, and the path
she describes reaches the department only after passing through the student’s teacher and the
student’s grandmother. That structure is the one Part IV addresses, and the section reaches it.
The connection described above must still be found in the materials, and Parr’s allegation—that
the principal urged the grandmother to file a police report while having had access to footage
showing no corroboration, after Parr had reported the preschool program out of compliance—
bears on the making of that report if credited. The circuit court heard that account and had
before it the records of the investigation that followed. The act Parr ascribes to the principal is
advice to file a police report. The section reaches the making of a report to the local department,
so the materials would have to connect that advice to the report NCDSS received.
As to the second complaint, Parr places particular weight on the anonymous note
allegedly left by Woodson for the principal the day the second investigation closed, which
- 17 -reported that there was a “weighted backpack in . . . Parr’s closet,” which Parr averred was a
“perfectly acceptable sensory tool.” The note is not a report or complaint within the meaning of
Code § 63.2-1514(D): it was directed to a school official rather than to a local department, and
no referral followed from it. It is therefore relevant only as circumstantial evidence bearing on
the motive behind the second report. So considered, its authorship is a matter of inference from
the petition rather than a fact established by the evidence. It does not tie the alleged motive to
the making of that report.
The circuit court had before it the reasons set forth in the petitions, the evidence Parr
presented at the August 28, 2025 hearing, and the investigative records furnished for in camera
review. Code § 63.2-1514(D). This Court’s examination of those records is its own: the file is
before this Court in the form it was before the circuit court, and this Court does not rely on that
court’s characterization of it. The statute conditions disclosure upon two findings; the circuit
court found the first unmet and did not reach the second. An opinion recounting the contents of
the file would supply by description what the General Assembly has withheld pending those
findings, and would do so without the protection the second condition exists to provide.
It is enough to say that the circuit court could conclude on those materials that they left
no reasonable question of fact as to the making of either report. Nothing in them compelled the
contrary conclusion. Part III forecloses a choice between accounts that could each be believed; it
does not foreclose a conclusion, resting on the materials, that the account offered raises no
reasonable question. The latter is the conclusion available to the circuit court here. This Court
reviews that determination on the terms set out in Part III. Cf. Gloucester, 256 Va. at 404
(examining the investigative file and determining that credible information in the file supported
the trial court’s findings). The order recites the finding the section calls for, and nothing in the
record shows that the circuit court proceeded from an understanding of that finding different
- 18 -from the one stated today; its judgment accordingly carries the presumption stated above.
Yarborough, 217 Va. at 978.
Because the materials that decide this case are sealed, what this opinion settles for future
cases is the construction it states, not the sufficiency of the showing made here. Nothing in this
opinion should be read to discount or express any view on the alleged retaliation Parr describes
in her employment; the question under this statute is narrower, and is directed to the making of
the reports. In that legal context, the circuit court’s determination is not plainly wrong.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, this Court affirms the judgment of the circuit court.
Affirmed.
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