holding District Court without jurisdiction to enforce consent decree on State law grounds
How later courts described this case
- holding District Court without jurisdiction to enforce consent decree on State law grounds
- vacating consent decree that created “federal court remedy unfounded in federal law [which] intrudes into the governance of matters otherwise presided over by the state.”
- no “right to habilitation in the least restrictive environment” because “[t]he constitutional minimum standard of habilitation ... relate[s], not to the qualitative betterment of a retarded person’s life, but only to the training necessary to afford him safety and freedom from bodily restraint”
- “Circuits that have addressed this issue have all held that there is no constitutional or federal right to community placement, or care or treatment in the least restrictive environment.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
WISDOM, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
I agree with the majority’s vacating the order of the district court. I would remand the case, however, for a hearing to determine whether the defendants have satisfied the Fourteenth Amendment criteria established in Youngberg as the minimum standards for the care of the mentally retarded.
I disagree with the majority’s expansive view of the Eleventh Amendment and of Pennhurst II. The coexistence of similar federal and state rights and remedies does not deprive a federal court of jurisdiction. The plaintiffs brought the action in the federal court, alleging deprivation of their Fourteenth Amendment rights. As early as its order of May 13, 1983, the district court stated:
The central focus of this case is the right of plaintiffs to safe conditions and to be free from harm, and the right to be free from unnecessary institutionalization. Also, the nature and duration of commitment must bear some reasonable relation to its purpose. The court recognizes the existence of the these rights under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Order of May 13, 1983 (filed May 19, 1983), at 2-3. In its order of October 3, 1984, the district court again said:
Lelsz v. Kavanagh was brought under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the court’s primary obligation in this case is to enforce the Constitution.
The Eleventh Amendment enjoys no exalted position over the Fourteenth. If the plaintiffs have not had a full and fair hearing on their federal rights, they are entitled to one. The decision of the majority deprives them of a hearing on their federal claim.