In March 2007, Courtney Bird, a Navy wife living in Hawaii, came home from a dentist appointment to a horrifying scene. Her husband, Frank Fontana, was performing CPR on their 1-month-old daughter.

Fontana had already called 911. After some delay due to a power outage, an ambulance arrived and Bird rode with her daughter to Tripler Army Medical Center, while her husband followed in their car.

Their baby later suffered cardiac arrest and died.

Hawaii’s Department of Human Services placed their other daughter, who was 2 at the time, in foster care, and according to a lawsuit filed against the agency in July, also placed Bird and Fontana’s names on the state’s child abuse or neglect registry without telling them.

The class-action lawsuit, filed by Honolulu attorney Margery Bronster on behalf of Bird, alleges that DHS routinely fails to alert people when they are placed on the registry, and that because of deficiencies in state law, the state doesn’t have to prove that any abuse actually occurred.

DHS has to prove only that the report wasn’t made frivolously or in “bad faith,” according to the lawsuit.

“Thus, an innocent person who was reported in ‘good faith’ will be permanently marked as a child abuser and deprived of the right to adopt children, teach or work in child care,” according to the complaint, filed in Circuit Court.

The registry can be accessed by employers doing background checks of potential hires.

The lawsuit alleges that the state’s practices violate the state Constitution and citizens’ rights to due process under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The complaint estimates that hundreds of people in Hawaii have had their rights violated by the registry.

The lawsuit is similar to legal complaints lodged in a number of other states in recent years related to child abuse registries, raising complicated questions about how to balance attempts by child welfare agencies to protect children from abuse against the rights of individuals to due process.

DHS spokeswoman Ke‘opu Reelitz said she couldn’t comment on the case because of the ongoing litigation. The department also declined to say how many people are on Hawaii’s child abuse registry.

Bronster could not be reached for comment on the case.

According to details laid out in the complaint, Bird’s nightmare was just beginning that day she came home from the dentist.

Devastated by the loss of her baby, Bird didn’t protest when DHS placed her other daughter in temporary custody “because she was so upset that she understood the need for help at a time of such profound grief,” according to the complaint.

DHS had opened its own investigation into the baby’s death, as did the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

During a second round of interviews with the Navy’s investigative arm, Bird and Fontana were taken into separate rooms. After hours of waiting by herself, Bird received some shocking news: Her husband had admitted to killing their baby, according to the lawsuit.

“Courtney had a hard time believing Frank’s confession because she had never seen him do anything inappropriate (to their daughters), nor had he ever done or said anything to her to make her suspicious,” the complaint states.

But Fontana pleaded guilty to the crime and Bird eventually accepted that he had murdered their baby, according to the lawsuit.

Bird spent months working with DHS to regain custody of her older daughter. The two eventually moved to Tennessee to live with her father, where Bird remarried.

She and her new husband decided to adopt a child from Africa. But after spending thousands of dollars on the adoption, they were told by adoption officials that a background check revealed that Bird’s name was on Hawaii’s child abuse registry.

“In the eyes of the law, Courtney is forever marked as a child abuser even though the State of Hawaii has never proved she ever harmed any child in any way,” according to the complaint. “Courtney can never adopt and may never work in any job where she might be responsible for the care of children.”

Child abuse registries exist in most states, according to information from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which has been looking into the feasibility of creating a national registry of child abusers that could help child protection workers know when perpetrators move to another state.

However, problems of due process plague a number of state registries, raising questions about whether such a national registry is feasible, according to a report the agency submitted to Congress last year.

In Hawaii, anyone can report suspected child abuse or neglect to DHS. When DHS receives the report, the department logs the person in the registry and assigns a social worker to investigate, the lawsuit said.

State law requires that people be notified when a complaint is lodged against them or an investigation completed, but the lawsuit alleges that DHS often fails to provide such notice.

After investigating the report, DHS classifies it as confirmed, not confirmed or unsubstantiated.

A case is listed as confirmed when there is “reasonable cause to believe that harm or threatened harm had occurred,” according to state law.

In an unconfirmed case, “there is insufficient evidence to confirm that harm or threatened harm had occurred.”

And an unsubstantiated case is when an investigation concludes that the report was “frivolous or made in bad faith.”

Both confirmed and unconfirmed cases remain in the registry to help assess any future complaints or child safety concerns.

“Innocent reported persons can suffer harm without ever knowing it,” the complaint states. “This is because the registry is used to screen applicants for certain jobs and positions but prospective employers do not necessarily inform the reported person.”