Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-94-07044/USCOURTS-caDC-94-07044-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued April 19, 1995 Decided October 31, 1995

No. 94-7044

LASHAWN A., ET AL.,

APPELLEES

v.

MARION S. BARRY, JR.,

AS MAYOR OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, ET AL.,

APPELLANTS

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 89cv01754)

Donna M. Murasky, Assistant Corporation Counsel, argued the cause for appellants. With her on

the briefs were Garland Pinkston, Acting Corporation Counsel, and Charles L. Reischel, Deputy

Corporation Counsel.

Christopher T. Dunn argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were Marcia R. Lowry,

Elizabeth Symonds and Arthur B. Spitzer.

Before: WILLIAMS, HENDERSON and RANDOLPH, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WILLIAMS.

Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge RANDOLPH.

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge: This case appears before us for the second time, with the

defendantsthe mayor and other officials of the District of Columbiaasking for relief from a

consent decree pursuant to which the district court is exercising broad supervisory authority over the

District's child welfare system. Because the district court has not re-examined the validity of the

federal claims underlying its jurisdiction since the Supreme Court issued a decision that seems to

undermine the statutory support for federal jurisdiction (though not the constitutional basis of certain

claims), we remand the case to the district court to perform that re-examination. See United Mine

Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 726-27 (1966).

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* * *

Plaintiffs, a class of children who either are in foster care under the supervision of the D.C.

Department of Human Services ("DHS"), or have been reported to be abused or neglected but are

not yet in DHS care, sought injunctive relief based on alleged violations of federal statutory and

constitutional law, as well as of local law.

The district court agreed for the most part with plaintiffs. LaShawn A. v. Dixon, 762 F. Supp.

959 (D.D.C. 1991). It found explicitly that the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980,

42 U.S.C. §§ 620-27 and §§ 670-79, afforded plaintiffs rights actionable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983

(1988), and held implicitly that the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 5101-

06, did so as well. See 762 F. Supp. at 988-89. It detailed widespread violations of those statutes.

Id. at 968-87. The court proceeded to find that children in foster care under the supervision of the

District enjoyed a liberty interest under the U.S. Constitution, id. at 991-92, with a concomitant right

to such services as were "essential to preventing harm" to the children, id. at 993. Compliance with

this norm was to be measured by the "professional judgment standard", drawn from Youngberg v.

Romeo, 457 U.S. 307 (1982). Under that standard, "liability may be imposed only when the decision

by the professional is such a substantial departure from accepted professional judgment, practice, or

standards as to demonstrate that the person responsible actually did not base the decision on such a

judgment." Id. at 323 (quoted at 762 F. Supp. at 994). Finally, the court held that various practices

of the District violated that standard, as well as the two pertinent federal statutes and various

provisions of local law. 762 F. Supp. at 996-98. It did not find a private right of action for the

children under D.C. law, although its discussion of possible entitlements protected under the due

process clause may have assumed such rights. Id. at 993-94.

In response to this merits determination, the parties negotiated a broad consent decree, which

in its current form occupies 90 single-spaced pages and constitutes a rather comprehensive manual

for the conduct of the District's child welfare activities. The agreement reserved defendants' right to

appeal the district court's liability ruling and addressed the possibility that the court's merits opinion

might be "vacated" in whole or in part. Section XXII(C) provides:

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In the event that the court's Memorandum Opinion of April 18, 1991, is vacated on

appealin its entirety, this Order and any subsequent implementation plan or plansshall

be null and void. In the event that the court's Memorandum Opinion of April 18,

1991, is vacated on appeal in part, the portions of this Order or any subsequent

implementation plan or plans that are directly based on that part of the Memorandum

Opinion that is vacated shall be null and void.

In their first appeal, defendants challenged the findings of constitutional violations. They also

claimed that, in light of the intervening Supreme Court decision in Suter v. Artist M., 503 U.S. 347

(1992), holding that §§ 671(a)(9) & (a)(15) of the Adoption Assistance Act are not enforceable in

a § 1983 action, the federal statutes on which the district court had relied were not enforceable by

private plaintiffs. This court found it unnecessary "to confront these constitutional and federal

statutory issues, for the district court judgment is completely supportable on the grounds of local

law", which, we said, creates a private cause of action both "for children in foster care and for

children reported to have been abused or neglected but not yet in the District's custody." LaShawn

A. ex rel. Moore v. Kelly, 990 F.2d 1319, 1322, 1325 (D.C. Cir. 1993). Because the consent decree

had been drafted to conform to federal as well as local law, we remanded to the district court "with

instructions to fashion an equally comprehensive order based entirely on District of Columbia law,

if possible. If there are any portions of the consent decree that depend entirely on a federal statute,

the district court should consider the impact of [Suter] on those provisions before it includes them

in the revised consent decree." Id. at 1326. 

On remand, the district court declared, despite our having explicitly sidestepped the issue of

liability under federal law, that we had "clearly affirmed this Court's Memorandum Opinion."

LaShawn A. v. Kelly, Civ. No. 89-1754, Order at 1 (D.D.C. Nov. 12, 1993) (citing our decision, 990

F.2d at 1326 ("Because the district court's judgment is independently supportable by District of

Columbia law, we affirm the court's decision in favor of the children in this case.")). On that basis,

it rejected defendants' argument that § XXII(C) of the consent decree required modification of the

decree. Id. at 2. It did not in any way address whether other circumstancessuch as the Suter

decision itselfmight require modification of the decree or re-examination ofthe court'sjurisdiction

under United Mine Workers v. Gibbs. After modifying certain provisions of the consent decree to

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remove termsthat the parties evidently agreed were in violation ofDistrict law, it rejected defendants'

contention that some provisions still violated local law. It acknowledged that the decree "exceeds

the specific mandates of local law", but found the excess "a necessary and appropriate use of [the

court's] equitable authority" in light of defendants' "widespread local law violations". LaShawn A.

v. Kelly, Civ. No. 89-1754, Order at 1 (D.D.C. Jan. 27, 1994). See also Order of Nov. 12, 1993 at

2 ("To the extent that portions ofthe remedial order exceed the terms of local law, the Court invokes

its equitable authority in approving the consent decree.").

* * *

Defendants now return to us, questioning whether the district court hasjurisdiction to enforce

a wide-ranging institutional reform order against the government of the District of Columbia based

entirely on District of Columbia law. We regard the defendants' claim as basically posing a question

under step 2 of Gibbs, namely, whether, given power at the outset in a generalized sense to decide

the plaintiffs'state law claims, the district court should, despite Suter, exercise that power in the form

of continuing to enforce a massive institutional reform decree of the sort it had originally adopted.

Law of the Case Considerations

Plaintiffsrespond that the jurisdictional question has already been decided, by the panel in the

first appeal, so that defendants' claim is barred by law-of-the-case doctrine. That doctrine embodies

the general rule that

a court involved in later phases of a lawsuit should not re-open questions decided

(i.e., established asthe law of the case) by that court or a higher one in earlier phases.

When there are multiple appeals taken in the course of a single piece of litigation,

law-of-the-case doctrine holds that decisions rendered on the first appeal should not

be revisited on later trips to the appellate court.

Crocker v. Piedmont Aviation, Inc., 49 F.3d 735, 739 (D.C. Cir. 1995). The doctrine

normally applies to issues decided explicitly or "by necessary implication". Id.

These conventional requirements have certainly been fulfilled in this case. The prior panel's

decision necessarily implied that a remedial order supported entirely by local law could properly be

entered. The court explicitly recognized that its affirmance rested "entirely on the basis of local law",

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LaShawn A. v. Kelly, 990 F.2d at 1326, and implicitly held that an order devoid of federal support

would present no jurisdictional problem. We said that our "authority to decide the case entirely on

pendent state grounds is incontrovertible", id., citing United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715,

722 (1966), for the proposition that a federal court presented with federal and local law claims may,

"even though the federalground be not established ... neverthelessretain and dispose ofthe case upon

the non-federal ground", id. (emphasis deleted). As to the second step required by Gibbs, the

decision whether under the conditions prevailing the district court should exercise power over the

pendent local-law claim by continuing enforcement of a 90-page child welfare code, the prior panel

passed sub silentio. Its remand to the district court for entry of an order based entirely on local law

necessarily implied that the answer to this question was "yes".

Law of the case, however, is a prudential doctrine that "merely expresses the practice of

courts generally to refuse to reopen what has been decided, not a limit to their power." Messenger

v. Anderson, 225 U.S. 436, 444 (1912) (Holmes, J.) (citations omitted). "A court has the power to

revisit prior decisions of its own or of a coordinate court in any circumstance". Christianson v. Colt

Industries Operating Corp., 486 U.S. 800, 817 (1988) (emphasis added). The Court in Christianson

noted, however, that "as a rule courts should be loathe to do so in the absence of extraordinary

circumstances such as where the initial decision was "clearly erroneous and would work a manifest

injustice.' " Id. (citation omitted).

In Christianson itself, the Court rejected defendant's theory that the Seventh Circuit's

determination that it lacked jurisdiction bound the Federal Circuit to that view, on transfer from the

Seventh. Once the Federal Circuit decided that the Seventh's view was " "clearly wrong' it [the

Federal Circuit] was obliged to decline jurisdiction," id. at 817, thus applying the conventional

exception for clear error. In any event, law of the case in the lower courts could not constrain the

Supreme Court's own review. "Just as a district court's adherence to law of the case cannot insulate

an issue from appellate review, a court of appeals' adherence to the law of the case cannot insulate

an issue from this Court's review." Id. In a footnote dictum, however, the Court said,

There is no reason to apply law-of-the-case principles less rigorously to transfer

decisions that implicate the transferee's jurisdiction. Perpetual litigation of any

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1See, e.g., Green v. Dept. of Commerce, 618 F.2d 836, 839 & n.9 (D.C. Cir. 1980); 

Amusement & Music Operators Ass'n v. Copyright Royalty Tribunal, 636 F.2d 531, 532-33 &

nn.2-4 (D.C. Cir. 1980); Acton Corp. v. Borden, 670 F.2d 377, 380 n.2 (1st Cir. 1982); Crane

Co. v. American Standard, 603 F.2d 244, 247 (2d Cir. 1979); EEOC v. Neches Butane Products

Co., 704 F.2d 144, 147 n.2 (5th Cir. 1983); Amen v. City of Dearborn, 718 F.2d 789, 794 (6th

Cir. 1983); Christianson v. Colt Industries Operating Corp., 798 F.2d 1051, 1056 (7th Cir.

1986). 

2The lone exception seems to be a case involving personal, not subject matter, jurisdiction. In

the Matter of Oil Spill by the Amoco Cadiz Off the Coast of France on March 16, 1978, 954

F.2d 1279, 1292 (7th Cir. 1992). 

issuejurisdictional or nonjurisdictionaldelays, and therefore threatens to deny,

justice. But cf. Potomac Passengers Assn. v. Chesapeake &Ohio R. Co., ... 520 F.2d

91, 95 n.22 [ (D.C. Cir. 1975) ].

486 U.S. at 816 n.5.

As the "But cf." cite suggests, our holding in Potomac Passengers directly contradicted the

Christianson dictum. In Potomac Passengers this court found that it had erroneously decided a

jurisdictional issue in a prior appeal and proceeded to correct the mistake. Though apologizing for

the earlier mistake, the court insisted on the need for correctness as to issues of subject matter

jurisdiction: "When an appellate court makes so fundamental an error as that of sustaining federal

subject matter jurisdictionwhere none exists, we think the court must exercise its discretion to correct

that mistake." 520 F.2d at 95 n.22. Potomac Passengers has been widely cited for the proposition

that jurisdictional questions are relatively unrestrained by law of the case.1

Courts have applied Christianson's discussion of law of the case doctrine relating to

jurisdictional questions only in casesinvolving the propriety of transfers.2 See, e.g., Ukiah Adventist

Hospital v. FTC, 981 F.2d 543, 546 n.4 (D.C. Cir. 1992) ("Review of a transfer order [including

jurisdictional grounds] in a transferee court is exceedingly limited.") (dictum citing Christianson);

Wang Laboratories v. Applied Computer Sciences, 958 F.2d 355, 358 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (accepting

case transferred by First Circuit, the court reasoned that "if the transferee court can find the transfer

decision plausible, itsjurisdictional inquiry is at an end"); Moses v. Business Card Express, 929 F.2d

1131, 1137 (6th Cir. 1991) (upholding, under Christianson, district court's decision to apply

law-of-the-case principles to transfer decision made pursuant to forum selection clause; technically

venue rather than jurisdictional issue). While courts have sometimes applied law of the case to

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jurisdictional questions, in doing so they have neither relied on the Christianson dictum nor even

expressly considered whether jurisdictional issues called for special treatment. See McKesson Corp.

v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 52 F.3d 346, 351 (D.C. Cir. 1995); In the Matter of Memorial Estates,

950 F.2d 1364, 1367 (7th Cir. 1991); Oneida Indian Nation of New York v. State of New York, 860

F.2d 1145, 1151 (2d Cir. 1988); Gould v. Mutual Life Ins. Co., 790 F.2d 769 (9th Cir. 1986)

(pre-Christianson). And two of the circuits that once applied law of the case to a jurisdictional issue

without discussion, the Ninth and the Second, later refused to do so when they zeroed in on the

special character of jurisdictional matters. In Matek v. Murat, 862 F.2d 720, 724 n.1 (9thCir. 1988),

decided several months after Christianson, the Ninth Circuit held that a district court was not barred

by law ofthe case from reconsidering its own non-final orders. The court cited Potomac Passengers

forthe propositionthat "[s]ubject matter jurisdiction, because ofitsintrinsic importance to the judicial

power of the federal courts, is particularly suitable for reconsideration." Id. And the Second Circuit

applied the same principle in DiLaura v. Power Authority, 982 F.2d 73, 77 (2d Cir. 1992), noting that

"subject matter jurisdiction is particularly suited for reconsideration", although, to be sure, as Judge

Winter noted in a separate opinion, the issue was in fact moot because what might have been law of

the case for the district court could not have prevented review by the court of appeals, see id. at 81.

Wright & Miller have noted that "[q]uestions ofsubject matter jurisdiction are particularly apt to be

free of law of the case principles", citing Potomac Passengers. Wright & Miller, Federal Practice

and Procedure § 4478 at 799 n.32 (1981) (under the heading "Suitable to Reconsider"). "In addition

to the great importance that is generally attributed to jurisdictional limits,such questions may at times

involve matters of discretion that inherently require reexamination as a case progresses", id.

(emphasis added), the latter phrase being apparently an allusion to step 2 of Gibbs. The 1995

Supplement to Wright & Miller does not modify that passage, 1995 Supplement at 739-40 n.32,

citing Christianson under the separate category of "Propriety of Transfer: Transferor

reconsideration", id. at 730 n.26.

The dissent attempts to elevate law of the circuit doctrine (which supposedly has no

exceptions) above law of the case doctrine (which concededly does). Dissent at 1-4. Plaintiffs,

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although they argued law-of-the-case vigorously, never suggested this distinction, perhaps because

they thought there was nonethat at the court of appeals level exceptions to law of the case were

necessarily the same as exceptions to law of the circuit. Nor did our own precedent on the subject,

Potomac Passengers, perceive such a distinction.

Among jurisdictional issues, the ones most strongly inviting a relaxed application of law of

the case are those that the prior decision never explicitly confronted. In Pennhurst State School &

Hospital v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89 (1984) ("Pennhurst II"), the Court certainly acted as ifsuch an

exception to ordinary law of the case doctrine existed. In Pennhurst State School & Hospital v.

Halderman, 451 U.S. 1 (1981) ("Pennhurst I"), the Court itself cast doubt on the federal basis for

a consent decree enforced against state officials,see id. at 18-27, and remanded the case to the Court

of Appeals to determine the validity of the federal claims. The Court also remanded state law claims

to determine "whetherstate law provides an independent and adequate ground which can support the

court's remedial order." Id. at 31. The remand order thus necessarily implied that a federal court

would have jurisdiction to enter the order on state law grounds alone.

On remand, the Court of Appeals acted on the implied permission Pennhurst I had given and

found that the Pennsylvania statute provided "adequate support for [the order] independent offederal

law". Halderman v. Pennhurst State School & Hospital, 673 F.2d 647, 656 (3d Cir. 1982). Again

the Supreme Court reversed, holding that the Eleventh Amendment deniesfederal courtsjurisdiction

to order state officials to conform their conduct to state law. 465 U.S. at 117-21. It brushed aside

several earlier implicit rulings to the contrary in other cases, announcing that stare decisis principles

did not bind itsreconsideration ofthe jurisdictional issue. ("When questions of jurisdiction have been

passed on in prior decisions sub silentio, this Court has never considered itself bound when a

subsequent case finally brings the jurisdictional issue before us." Id. at 119.)

Pennhurst II is not, of course, identical to the current issue. First, the direct bar of the

Eleventh Amendment is plainly of greater force than the discretionary jurisdictional limit of Gibbs

step 2. Second, though the Court alluded to implicit holdings to the contrary in other cases, it did

not acknowledge the necessary implication of Pennhurst I that there was federal jurisdiction for an

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3Because this litigation was commenced before December 1, 1990, the new supplemental

jurisdiction statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1367 (Supp. V 1993), does not apply. 

injunction resting solely on state law, and thus an obvious ground for applying law-of-the-case.

Especially given the merely "prudential" character of law-of-the-case restrictions, and the doctrine's

grounding in concerns of judicial economy, see, e.g., Crocker, 49 F.3d at 739-40, however, the

Court's action strongly suggests that law-of-the-case considerations give way more readily to

jurisdictional concerns, at least where the initial decision has failed to address the issue explicitly.

We thus turn to consider whether a Gibbs step 2 inquiry is jurisdictional. When a federal

court is presented with a combination offederal and state claims, it must pursue the two-step analysis

outlined in Gibbs. 383 U.S. at 725-27.3 The first step requires the court to evaluate the substantiality

of the federal claim and whether the state and federal claims "derive from a common nucleus of

operative fact". Id. at 725. If these requirements are met, then "there is power in the federal courts

to hear the whole". In our first pass at this case, we got that far and stopped. Finding that there had

been (prior to Suter) a substantial federal claim, we asserted "incontrovertible" authority "to decide

the case entirely on pendent state grounds". 990 F.2d at 1326.

But Gibbs makes clear that that should not be the end ofthe inquiry. The Supreme Court has

spoken of Gibbs step 2 in terms that mark it as a jurisdictional inquiry, in the sense that it requires

continuous re-examination as the litigation and surrounding legal context develop. As Gibbs itself

says:

That power need not be exercised in every case in which it isfound to exist....

Needless decisions of state law should be avoided both as a matter of comity and to

promote justice between the parties, by procuring for them a surer-footed reading of

applicable law.... The question of power will ordinarily be resolved on the pleadings.

But the issue whether pendent jurisdiction has properly been assumed is one which

remains open throughout the litigation. Pretrial procedures or even the trial itself

mayreveal a substantialhegemony ofstate law claims, or likelihood ofjuryconfusion,

which could not have been anticipated at the pleading stage. Although it will of

course be appropriate to take account in this circumstance of the already completed

course of the litigation, dismissal of the state claim might even then be merited.

383 U.S. at 726-27 (emphasis added). And more recently the Court stated in Carnegie-Mellon

University v. Cohill, 484 U.S. 343 (1988):

Under Gibbs, a federal court should consider and weigh in each case, and at

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4Cf. Evans v. City of Chicago, 10 F.3d 474, 479 (7th Cir. 1993) (en banc) (holding that mere

consent of local officials, without viable federal claim, could not justify continued enforcement of

decree against city) ("the court must ensure that there is a substantial federal claim, not only when

the decree is entered but also when it is enforced, and that the obligations imposed by the decree

rest on this rule of federal law rather than the bare consent of the officeholder") (emphasis added). 

every stage of the litigation, the values of judicial economy, convenience, fairness,

and comity in order to decide whether to exercise jurisdiction over a case brought in

that court involving pendent state-law claims. When the balance of these factors

indicates that a case properly belongs in state court, as when the federal-law claims

have dropped out of the lawsuit in its early stages and only state-law claims remain,

the federal court should decline the exercise of jurisdiction by dismissing the case

without prejudice.

Id. at 350 (emphasis added).4

Lowerfederalcourts of appeals, including this circuit, have followed theSupremeCourt'slead

and treated the Gibbs step 2 inquiry asjurisdictionaland accordingly have raised the issue on their

own. The Seventh Circuit raised a Gibbsstep 2 issue sua sponte in Maguire v. Marquette University,

814 F.2d 1213, 1218 & n.4 (7th Cir. 1987). After dismissing plaintiff's federal claim before trial, the

district court had proceeded to review a pendent state law claim on the merits. Although defendant

did not raise a Gibbs step 2 issue on appeal, the Seventh Circuit declared that "because the rule is

jurisdictional, we are obligated to raise it ourselves." Id. at 1218 n.4 (emphasis added). The court

then vacated the district court's dismissal of the pendent claim on the merits. This court has likewise

treated Gibbsstep 2 analysis asjurisdictional and raised the issue sua sponte. In Minker v. Baltimore

Annual Conference of United Methodist Church, 894 F.2d 1354, 1361 (D.C. Cir. 1990), the district

court had previously dismissed both federal statutory and state contract claims under the Free

Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. This court held that the district court had correctly

dismissed the federalstatutory claims, but had incorrectly dismissed the state contract claims on First

Amendment grounds. Without prompting, the court proceeded to hold that because the district court

had properly dismissed the federal claim before trial, under Gibbs step 2 it should also dismiss the

pendent state law claim unless it found diversity of citizenship. Id.

The dissent dispatches Maguire and Minker bycharacterizing themas applications of a newly

coined Gibbs step one-and-a-halfcases where the federal claim survives step 1 but is dismissed

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before trial. Dissent at 10. Thus, in its view, the Seventh Circuit's and our treatment of that situation

as jurisdictional can't possibly mean that Gibbs step 2 is jurisdictional. But until the dissent, no one

has perceived this circumstance as involving a special kind of Gibbs step; it is simply an instance of

Gibbs step 2 so clear that any continued assertion of jurisdiction by the district court would be an

abuse of discretion. See Gibbs, 383 U.S. at 726.

In sum, the key issue herethe application of Gibbs step 2(1) is jurisdictional, and thus is

subject to continuous reexamination throughout the enforcement of a consent decree (even without

a party's raising it) and (2) was never explicitly addressed in our prior decision. Our non-discussion

ofthe finding of continued jurisdiction suggeststhat it consumed few or no judicialresources. Taking

our cue from the Supreme Court in Pennhurst II, therefore, we conclude that the interest in limiting

federal courts to the exercise of their proper jurisdiction outweighs the marginal contribution to

stability and judicial economy that could be achieved by giving finality to our prior sub silentio

treatment of the Gibbs step 2 issue.

Gibbs Step 2 Analysis

As we said before, the first part ofthe Gibbstest issatisfied once a federal court is determined

to have power over state claims because of a substantial related federal claim. That part is indeed

satisfied here. Step 2 of the Gibbstest requires a weighing offactorsto determine whether, although

power exists, it should be exercised in favor of jurisdiction. These factors include judicial economy,

convenience and fairness to litigants, avoidance of needless decisions of state law (in order to

promote comity and obtain a "surer-footed reading of applicable law"), the timing of the dismissal

of the federal claims, the predominance of state versus federal issues, and the potential for jury

confusion. United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 726-27 (1966). The initial decision lies

in the discretion of the district court, subject to review for abuse of discretion in the court of appeals.

Edmondson & Gallagher v. Alban Towers Tenants Ass'n, 48 F.3d 1260, 1265-66 (D.C. Cir. 1995).

Two circumstances weigh heavily against allowing pendent jurisdiction: federal claims have

either dropped out or are greatly weakened, and the local claims lead to extensive entanglement in

local government operations.

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5We do not hold that the disappearance of federal claims from a case automatically deprives a

federal court of jurisdiction over all types of pendent claims, which would be contrary to Rosado

v. Wyman, 397 U.S. 397, 404-05 (1970). The disappearance or weakening of federal claims are

simply factors to be considered in step 2 of a Gibbs analysis. We do not understand why the

dissent flogs us with "conflict[ing] directly with Rosado." Dissent at 12-13. 

6See also Catalano v. Dept. of Hospitals, 299 F. Supp. 166, 175 (S.D.N.Y. 1969) (refusing to

exercise pendent jurisdiction under Gibbs to determine whether income exemption regulation

conformed to state law, since issue "presents a question of state legislative intent and delegation

of powers to an administrative body, which more appropriately lies within the ambit of the state

court's expertise with respect to its own laws"). 

First, the elimination or weakening of federal claims obviously weighs against exercise of

pendent jurisdiction.5 Gibbs itself said: "Certainly, if the federal claims are dismissed before trial,

even though not insubstantial in a jurisdictional sense, the state claims should be dismissed as well."

383 U.S. at 726. Courts have held that pendent state claims should be dismissed if the federal claim

drops out quite late, even after trial. See, e.g., Kidder, Peabody & Co. v. Maxus Energy Corp., 925

F.2d 556, 564 (2d Cir. 1991) ("The judicial economy factor should not be the controlling factor, and

it may be appropriate for a court to relinquish jurisdiction over pendent claims even where the court

has invested considerable time in their resolution."); Powell v. Gardner, 891 F.2d 1039, 1047 (2d

Cir. 1989) (holding that even after a trial on the merits, district court properlydismissed pendentstate

law claims after directing a verdict in favor of defendant on federal claim).

Similarly, predominance of local law issues weighs against exercise of pendent jurisdiction.

In Gibbs, the Supreme Court noted "if it appears that the state issues substantially predominate,

whether in terms of proof, of the scope of the issues raised, or of the comprehensiveness of the

remedy sought, the state law claims may be dismissed without prejudice". 383 U.S. at 726 (emphasis

added). As Gibbs suggests, considerations of comity weigh especially heavily in cases involving

massive consent decrees controlling government bodies. Even before Pennhurst, federal courts were

concerned about controlling state agenciesthrough exercise of pendent jurisdiction under Gibbsstep

2. In Evans v. Buchanan, 468 F. Supp. 944, 956 (D. Del. 1979), for example, the court refused to

exercise pendent jurisdiction under Gibbsto redesign a state school district tax, citing "the intricacies

of the state-law issue" and "questions of comity raised by the remedies proposed."6

Although injunctions against District of Columbia officials based on District law are not

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7We note that the First Circuit has interpreted the term "state", as used in the Eleventh

Amendment, to include more than just the 50 obvious ones, ruling that Puerto Rico is covered by

the Eleventh Amendment "in the same manner, and to the same extent, as if [it] were a State." 

See De Leon Lopez v. Corporacion Insular de Seguros, 931 F.2d 116, 121 (1st Cir. 1991). But

we decline to follow the First Circuit's approach here. 

outright banned under the Eleventh Amendment, which applies only to states,7 Pennhurst II does

suggest that, in general, injunctions against nonfederal officials based on nonfederal law should be

disfavored. Indeed, we have consistently stressed the respect due the courts of the District of

Columbia in applying District law. In applying jurisdictional aspects of exhaustion doctrine, for

example, we have noted that "the federal courts owe to the District ofColumbia the comity extended

to a state". Committee of Blind Vendors of the District of Columbia v. District of Columbia, 28 F.3d

130, 134 (D.C. Cir. 1994). Moreover, we have followed this principle in applying Gibbs step 2. In

Financial General Bankshares, Inc. v. Metzger, 680 F.2d 768, 772 (D.C. Cir. 1982), we held that

the district court had abused its discretion in exercising pendent jurisdiction over novel and unsettled

questions of D.C. law (fiduciary duty issues). And in Grano v. Barry, 733 F.2d 164 (D.C. Cir. 1984),

we underlined the importance of avoiding unnecessary federal court invasions of local

self-government. One part of an injunction had become moot and the other rested solely on a

mistaken belief that local officials' violation of local law ipso facto violated the federal Constitution.

After explaining that local law violations were not automatically federal violations and that rights

created by local law should normally be vindicated in local courts, we turned to the possibility of

pendent jurisdiction and rejected it:

In general, "principles of comityand the desirabilityof a "surer-footed reading

of applicable law' support the determination of state claims in state court." [Citing

Gibbs and a D.C. Circuit case.] 3 Determination by the state court is especially

important where the case involves "novel and unsettled" issues ofstate law.... Here,

the law in question is new, its meaning ambiguous and sharply disputed. Moreover,

the district court should not retain jurisdiction because this case directly implicates

the processes by which a locality governsitself. Appellees' remedy, if any, lies in the

courts of the District of Columbia.

__________

3. Although the District ofColumbia is constitutionallydistinct fromthe states,

it may nevertheless be treated as a state for present purposes....

Id. at 169 (emphasis added). Similarly, in Angela R. by Hesselbein v. Clinton, 999 F.2d 320 (8th Cir.

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8See also Evans v. City of Chicago, 10 F.3d 474 (7th Cir. 1993) (en banc). Although Evans

involved a pure "municipal corporation", the city of Chicago, the court recognized the force of

comity principles even as to political entities not covered by the Eleventh Amendment. When

making inquiries into jurisdictional support for a consent decree, "courts are bound by principles

of federalism (and by the fundamental differences between judicial and political branches of

government) to preserve the maximum leeway for democratic governance." Id. at 479.

The dissent appears to suppose that we rely on the Eleventh Amendment. Dissent at 16-

18. If for some reason the paragraphs above leave any doubt on the subject, No, we do

not; we rely primarily on circuit precedent affording a similar (and doubtless weaker)

comity to the District of Columbia, with support from other circuits recognizing the role

of comity where it was not (or was perceived as not) mandated by Pennhurst II.

1993), while the court found the first step of Gibbs satisfied in a case under the Fourteenth

Amendment, the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act, and the Child Abuse Prevention and

Treatment Act, and while it for unexpressed reasons did not regard the Pennhurst II bar as

insurmountable, id. at 325, it cautioned the district court about devoting federal judicialresourcesto

enforcement of a decree under a pendent state law claimeven where the state legislature had

explicitly imposed the precise terms of the decree on the state welfare agency. Noting the "decidedly

minor" interest of federal courtsin remedying violations ofstate law, id. at 325-26, the court vacated

the decree and remanded the case to the district court, with instructionsto weigh the "constitutional,

statutory, and institutionalfactorsthat bear upon the task of crafting a suitable equitable decree". Id.8

It is true that we have upheld an injunction against District officials based solely on pendent

District law grounds. See District of Columbia Common Cause v. District of Columbia, 858 F.2d

1, 10 (D.C. Cir. 1988). But there our application of Gibbs step 2 found only that the district court

had not abused its discretion by ordering an injunction against the District of Columbia prohibiting

it from spending public funds to oppose citizens' initiatives. Such a limited, prohibitory injunction

offends the principle of comity to a far lesser extent than the wide-ranging, positive institutional

reform injunction here.

So far, we have considered the two factors of a vanishing federal claim and an intrusive

remedy based on local law grounds separately. But the two factors are closely related. Gibbs sets

out a multi-factor balancing test, and presumably a factor pointing in one direction could offset one

pointing in the other, and a strong factor pointing in one direction would reinforce a weak factor

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9We express no opinion as to the merits of the district court's original finding that the

post-custody children have valid constitutional claims under the dictum of DeShaney v.

Winnebago County Dept. of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189, 201 n.9 (1989) ("Had the State by the

affirmative exercise of its power removed Joshua from free society and placed him in a foster

home operated by its agents, we might have a situation sufficiently analogous to incarceration or

institutionalization to give rise to an affirmative duty to protect."). If the district court does reach

the issue on remand and adheres to its ruling, it should consider the possibility of bifurcating the

class, since in-custody plaintiffs raise issues distinct from those who rely entirely on federal and

local statutes.

We note in this connection that although courts ordinarily refrain from deciding constitutional

questions when a case can be resolved on the basis of state law, see Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U.S.

288, 346-47 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring); Siler v. Louisville & Nashville R.R. Co., 213 U.S.

175, 191 (1909), Pennhurst II "had the effect of overruling the entire history of Siler/Ashwander

doctrine in cases where injunctive relief is requested against the state." Cuesnongle v. Ramos,

835 F.2d 1486, 1497 (1st Cir. 1987) (citing Pennhurst II, 465 U.S. at 123 (majority opinion); 

465 U.S. at 159-63 (Stevens, J., dissenting)). The comity afforded the District under Grano v.

Barry in the application of Gibbs step 2, paralleling the rule of Pennhurst II, similarly implies that

the district court may not exercise jurisdiction over the pendent claims merely to avoid

confronting the reverse-DeShaney issue. Of course Ashwander would under no circumstances

suggest any need to refrain from addressing the issues of federal statutory law. 

pointing in the same direction. So, for instance, the greater the intrusion on local government, the

more substantial the federal claim should be. It seems at least doubtful that an intrusion such as the

consent decree here could be supported where the Supreme Court has found two of the federal

statutoryprovisionsinadequate to ground a § 1983 claimunlessthe remaining statutory clauses can

be successfully distinguished.

Because the district court failed to consider the impact of Gibbs step 2 factorsparticularly

considerations of comityon its exercise of jurisdiction, we remand the case with instructions on

how to proceed. Cf. Webb v. Bladen, 480 F.2d 306, 309-10 (4th Cir. 1973) (remanding case for

Gibbs step 2 analysis where the district court failed to recognize that it had discretion under Gibbs

to hear pendent claims and erroneously thought it was required to dismiss state claims for lack of

jurisdiction).

Further Considerations on Remand

Anyspecific provision ofthe consent decree that can be grounded inwhat the court concludes

is a winning federal claim should of course be preserved.9 The parties here have not briefed the

precise impact of Suter on each of the various sections of the federal statutes at issue. Accordingly,

we remand the case to the district court to make that inquiry in the first instance, in order to

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determine which, if any, federal grounds survive that could support an injunction. We note that at

a minimum, the "reasonable efforts" clause of the Adoption Assistance Act, § 671(a)(15), relied on

heavily by the district court, see 762 F. Supp. at 961, 970, 980, 986, and § 671(a)(9), related to its

findings at id. at 986, are no longer enforceable under the express holding of Suter. See 503 U.S. at

359 n.10, 364.

Ancillarymandates may be appropriate under the court's equitable jurisdiction, but onlyto the

extent shown necessary to remedy violations that any decree properly addresses under the above

standards. See Missouri v. Jenkins, 63 U.S.L.W. 4486, 4495 (U.S. June 12, 1995) ("[T]he remedial

quality education program should be tailored to remedy the injuries suffered by the victims of prior

de jure segregation.... On remand, the District Court must bear in mind that its end purpose is not

only "to remedy the violation' to the extent practicable, but also "to restore state and local authorities

to the control of a school system that is operating in compliance with the Constitution.' ") (citations

omitted); Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U.S. 267, 280-81 (1977) ("[T]he nature of the desegregation

remedy is to be determined by the nature and scope of the constitutional violation.... [T]he federal

courts in devising a remedy must take into account the interests of state and local authorities in

managing their own affairs, consistent with the Constitution.") (citations omitted). Specific

provisions that cannot be supported on any of the above bases should be excised from the decree.

Plaintiffs cite LocalNo. 93 v. City of Cleveland, 478 U.S. 501 (1986), for the proposition that

defendants may and should be held to the provisions of the consent decree, even though those

provisions exceed what the law requires. But as we explain in more detail below, the District, like

defendants in Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail, 112 S. Ct. 748 (1992), consented to the

provisions of the decree only to the extent that they were necessary to remedy legal violations and

has consistently objected to being subjected to more demanding standards. In Local No. 93, by

contrast, the defendant cityvoluntarilyaccepted and continued to embrace extra obligations, to which

only third parties objected. Compare Rufo, 112 S. Ct. at 762-63 ("Federal courts may not order

States or local governments, over their objection, to undertake a course of conduct not tailored to

curing a constitutional violation that has been adjudicated.... [M]isunderstanding of the law could

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form a basis for modification. In this connection, we note again that the decree itself recited that it

"sets forth a program which is both constitutionally adequate and constitutionally required.' ")

(citations omitted).

* * *

The district court will confront a number of other issues on remand that the parties have

adequately briefed and on which we offer the following guidance.

First, plaintiffs suggest that § XXII(C) foreclosestermination of the consent decree, because

it calls for termination only on the occurrence of an eventvacation of the district court's original

merits opinion in its entiretythat has not taken place. There are a number of flaws in this

contention. First, § XXII(C) clearly contemplates partial relief calibrated to partial failure of the

grounds onwhich the district court acted. The consent decree thus does not represent a "compromise

[on] genuine uncertainties", Evans v. City of Chicago, 10 F.3d 474, 478-79 (7thCir. 1993) (en banc),

but rather a knuckling under to the district court'slegal conclusions, contingent on those conclusions

being upheld on appeal. The decree specifies that "portions of this Order ... that are directly based

on [any] part of the Memorandum Opinion that is vacated shall be null and void." In a literal sense,

of course, even the partial condition never had any serious possibility of being fulfilled, for appellate

courts rarely vacate district court opinions as opposed to judgments. But the parties plainly did not

bargain for so hypertechnical a reading. Rather, since the provisions of the consent decree were

negotiated as responses to specific findings of violations, the parties clearly anticipated that any

undermining of those findings would require that the District be freed of the affected provisions. In

effect, § XXII(C) is congruent with the lessons of Pennhurst IIthat major changes in federal law

may have the effect of undermining the jurisdictional basis of a continuing decree that is based only

on local law. Accordingly, § XXII(C) cannot be read to preclude a consideration of Suter's impact

on the decree's legal foundation.

Resting heavily on their contrary reading of § XXII(C), plaintiffs object that defendantsfailed

to move below for modification of the consent decree. Although the defendants did not specifically

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10Even if the defendants had not sought relief on these grounds, we would still be required to

investigate the basis of the district court's jurisdiction on our own initiative. See Minker v.

Baltimore Annual Conference of United Methodist Church, 894 F.2d 1354, 1361 (D.C. Cir.

1990); Maguire v. Marquette University, 814 F.2d 1213, 1218 & n.4 (7th Cir. 1987). 

invoke Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(5), authorizing relief when "it is no longer equitable that the judgment

should have prospective application", they indisputably sought relief on the grounds that Suter had

eroded the basisfor the decree,see Defendants' MemorandumonRemand at 4 & n.1 (Oct. 20, 1993),

and the district court's orders recognize as much, see, e.g., Order of Nov. 12, 1993, at 1 (referring

to defendants'requeststhat it "vacate orsubstantiallymodify the remedial order").10 Even apart from

§ XXII(C), modification of a consent decree under Rule 60(b)(5) would proceed under "a flexible

modification standard in institutionalreformlitigation because such decrees "reach beyond the parties

involved directly in the suit and impact on the public's right to the sound and efficient operation of

its institutions.' " Rufo, 112 S. Ct. at 759 (citations omitted). See also Evans, 10 F.3d at 480, 477

(finding that any continued enforcement of a consent decree entered into by the City of Chicago had

become " "inequitable' within the meaning of Rule 60(b)(5)" where the federal grounds had all been

found wanting and continuing supervision would burden the district court and entangle it in the

operations of "another sovereign"); Sweeton v. Brown, 27 F.3d 1162 (6th Cir. 1994) (en banc)

(similar).

Second, plaintiffs contend that insofar as Suter may draw in question the district court's

conclusion that the two federalstatutes create rights enforceable under § 1983,Congress hasreversed

it. They point to the following 1994 enactment:

In an action brought to enforce a provision of the Social Security Act, such

provision is not to be deemed unenforceable because of its inclusion in a section of

the Act requiring a State plan orspecifying the required contents of a State plan. This

section is not intended to limit or expand the grounds for determining the availability

of private actions to enforce State plan requirements other than by overturning any

such grounds applied in Suter v. Artist M., 112 S. Ct. 1360 (1992), but not applied

in prior Supreme Court decisionsrespecting such enforceability; Provided, however,

that this section is not intended to alter the holding in Suter v. Artist M. that section

[671(a)(15)] of the Act is not enforceable in a private right of action.

Social Security Act Amendments of 1994, Pub. L. No. 103-432, § 211, 108 Stat. 4398, 4460 (Oct.

31, 1994) (to be codified at 42 U.S.C. § 1320a-2); see also Improving America's Schools Act of

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1994, Pub. L. No. 103-382, § 555, 108 Stat. 3518, 4057-58 (Oct. 20, 1994) (enacting the same

language). Defendants respond that this instruction about "how to go about construing legislation

enacted by other Congresses ... impermissibly intrudes on the judicial power." Reply Br. at 22. We

see no need to evaluate defendants' constitutional argument, because we cannot see that the

"instruction" bears on the interpretive issues before the district court.

Contrary to the assumptions of plaintiffs' (and the dissent's) arguments, Suter did not find

provisions of the Adoption Assistance Act unenforceable "because of ... inclusion in a section of [the

Act] requiring a State plan orspecifying the required contents of a State plan." 42 U.S.C. § 1320a-2.

Rather, as we read Suter, its holding was based on the combination of (1) the Pennhurst I

requirement of a clear statement for any conditions on state receipt of federal grants, see 503 U.S.

at 356, (2) the absence of "statutory guidance ... as to how "reasonable efforts' are to be measured",

id. at 360, and (3) the establishment of an alternative enforcement mechanism,see id. at 360-61. The

discussion of the section's being embedded in the requirements for a state plan, id. at 358, seems

largely a way station to the point that alternative means of enforcement are provided. The Suter

Court's principal concern was the Act's vagueness. In discussing the "reasonable efforts" clause, §

671(a)(15) (state must make "reasonable efforts" to prevent need for removing child from his home

and to return child to home after removal), the Court noted: "How the State was to comply with this

directive, and with the other provisions of the Act, was, within broad limits, left up to the State." 503

U.S. at 360 (emphasis added).

This interpretation of Suter corresponds with the ordinary inquiry as to whether to infer a

private right of action from a statutory scheme, see, e.g., Cort v. Ash, 422 U.S. 66 (1975), and has

been endorsed by other circuits as well. See, e.g., Marshall v. Switzer, 10 F.3d 925, 929 (2d Cir.

1993) ("[T]he significant point in Suter was not that the statute in question only required a state to

submit a plan to the federal agency but that the statute provided no guidance for measuring

"reasonable efforts.' "); Wood v. Tompkins, 33 F.3d 600, 605-06 n.14 (6thCir. 1994) ("[T]he [Suter]

Court noted that other sections of the Adoption Act, in contrast to § 671(a)(15), did indeed impose

precise requirements on the states in addition to requiring the mere submission of a plan.... [T]he

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11We note that two district courts interpreting § 211 have deferred to the congressional view

that inclusion in a plan was central to Suter's analysissee Jeanine B. v. Thompson, 877 F. Supp.

1268, 1283 (E.D. Wis. 1995); Harris v. James, 1995 WL 248796, *10 (M.D. Ala. Apr. 26,

1995)but we disagree. 

holding is simply that the one particular provision that was at issue is too amorphous to confer

enforceable rights."). Likewise, in Doe v. District of Columbia, Civ. No. 93-0092, slip op. at 17

(D.D.C. Feb. 25, 1994), the court found that a provision that had originally been relied on in this case,

42 U.S.C. § 5106a(b)(2) (a provision of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act), "invests

only "generalized dut[ies]' upon the states and does not "unambiguously confer' an enforceable right

to bring a private action against the government." The court at no point relied on Congress's having

specified that the requirement should be embodied in a State plan.11 Of course neither the Social

Security Act of 1994 nor the identical language of the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994 did

anything to supply more precise standards for the Adoption Assistance Act, or to alter the clear

statement requirement or the Adoption Assistance Act's non-judicial enforcement provisions; it thus

changed none of the factors on which the Suter Court's reasoning depended.

Congress may have been misled by the language of Suter's footnote 10, which says, after

setting forth the language of § 671(a)(9), "Asthissubsection is merely anotherfeature which the state

plan must include to be approved by the Secretary, it does not afford a cause of action to the

respondents anymore than does the "reasonable efforts' clause of § 671(a)(15)." 503 U.S. at 359

n.10. In conjunction with the opinion's text, discussed above, we read the footnote to state essentially

that the combination of factors noted above applies with equal force to § 671(a)(9).

The legislative history of the identical 1994 provisions suggests that Congress may also have

been confused by Suter's statement that "the Act does place a requirement on the States, but that

requirement only goesso far asto ensure that the State have a plan approved by the Secretary which

contains the 16 listed features." 503 U.S. at 358. See H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 213, 103d Cong., 1st

Sess. 863 (1993), reprinted in 1993 U.S.C.C.A.N. 1088, 1552 (quoting above sentence). The point

of the sentence, however, is simply to distinguish what the statute specifically requires of states

(adoption of a plan approved by the Secretary) from whatfor the reasons given elsewhere in the

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opinionit does not require. It certainly does not announce a general rule that mandatory inclusion

in a plan demonstrates intent not to create an enforceable right.

The legislative history has another formulation of congressional purpose, but it is no more

helpful than the reference to state plans. The Conference report stated that

The intent of this provision is to assure that individuals who have been injured by a

State's failure to comply with the Federal mandates of the State plan titles of the

Social Security Act are able to seek redress in the federal courts to the extent that

they were able to prior to the decision in Suter v. Artist M., while also making clear

that there is no intent to overturn or reject the determination in Suter that the

reasonable efforts clause to Title IV-E does not provide a basis for a private right of

action.

H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 761, 103d Cong., 2d Sess. 926 (1994), reprinted in 1994 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2901,

3257 (emphasis added). But the Court decided Suter by applying previously established judicial

criteria to a specific instance (§ 671(a)(15)) of a general question (whether Congress intended to

create an enforceable right). The dissent in Suter, cited by the dissent here, was not correct in

claiming that the Suter majority had "changed the rules of the game." 503 U.S. at 377 (Blackmun,

J., dissenting). Even if Congress could wipe Suter from the books, we think that lower courts

addressing the same issue would have no basis for assuming that, if once again confronted with a

Suter-like issue, the Supreme Court would not do just what it did in Suter. Thus, unless § 211

actually changed part of the test that led to the outcome in Suter (which, as we have said, it did not),

courtsshould find equally vague provisions ofsimilar acts equally unenforceable for the reasonsthat

the Court found convincing in Suter.

Nor does the second sentence of the 1994 amendments assist plaintiffs. It reads:

This section is not intended to limit or expand the grounds for determining the

availability of private actions to enforce State plan requirements other than by

overturning any such grounds applied in Suter v. Artist M., 112 S. Ct. 1360 (1992),

but not applied in prior Supreme Court decisions respecting such enforceability;

Provided, however, that this section is not intended to alter the holding in Suter v.

Artist M. that section [671(a)(15) ] of [the Act] is not enforceable in a private right

of action.

(Emphasis added.) But Congress identified no "grounds" applied in Suter that were "not applied in

prior Supreme Court decisions respecting ... enforceability." Thus the sentence has no effect on the

interpretive issues raised by the Adoption Assistance Act.

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1For those unacquainted with this class action, I offer a brief history in an addendum to this

opinion. 

* * *

After what may seem a long journey, the core of our conclusion is no more than that we take

seriously the Supreme Court's statement in Gibbs that "the issue whether pendent jurisdiction has

properly been assumed is one which remains open throughout the litigation." 383 U.S. at 727. When

a Supreme Court decision such as Suter flatly removes some of the supports of pendent jurisdiction,

and at a minimum enfeebles most of the others, the "open" issue must be reexamined. To that end,

we remand the case to the district court.

So ordered.

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge, dissenting: To paraphrase Edward R. Murrow, anyone who isn't

confused by the majority opinion doesn't really understand it.

After six years of litigation, after a trial and a decision of this court sustaining the district

court's jurisdiction, after further proceedings on remand, after an order finding the District of

Columbia in contempt and the appointment of a receiver, after all thisvoilàmy two colleagues

spot a "jurisdictional" flaw in the case, a flaw everyone else must have overlooked. Of course, they

have discovered no such thing. The supposed defect identified in the majority opinion is not of the

jurisdictional variety, and the issue the majority opinion addresses is hardly newthis court decided

it two years ago when the District first appealed. LaShawn A. ex rel. Moore v. Kelly, 990 F.2d 1319

(D.C. Cir. 1993) ("LaShawn I"). The District sought rehearing from that decision. The court denied

the petition. The District suggested rehearing en banc. It did not get the votes. Now my colleagues,

forgetting that two judges do not an en banc court make, reverse the first panel's ruling. That is, to

say the least, an extraordinary result, and so are the reasons given for it. The majority opinion tosses

aside settled law, turns its back on Supreme Court decisions, disregards the controlling precedents

of this court, rewrites the holdings of other courts, and badly misreads a federal statute.1

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2Ward v. James, [1966] 1 Q.B. 273, 294 (C.A.) (quoting Lord Mansfield in John Wilkes' case,

Rex v. Wilkes, 98 Eng. Rep. 327, 335 (1770)). See Henry J. Friendly, Indiscretion About

Discretion, 31 EMORY L.J. 747, 758 (1982). 

I

Inconsistency is the antithesis of the rule of law. For judges, the most basic principle of

jurisprudence is that " "we must act alike in all cases of like nature.' "

2 This is an old idea, and it has

given rise to two time-honored doctrines of importance to this case. First, the same issue presented

in a later case in the same court should lead to the same result. Second, the same issue presented

a second time in the same case in the same court should lead to the same result. For three-judge

panels in the federal courts of appeals, the first proposition reflects a variant of stare decisis, which

I shall call the law-of-the-circuit doctrine. The second embodies the law-of-the-case doctrine. The

majority opinion violates both.

The law-of-the-circuit doctrine is derived fromlegislationand fromthe structure ofthe federal

courts of appeals. Courts of appeals sit in panels, or divisions, of "not more than three judges"

pursuant to the authority granted in 28 U.S.C. § 46(c). The "decision of a division" is "the decision

ofthe court." Revision Notes to 28 U.S.C. § 46 (citing Textile Mills Security Corp. v. Commissioner

of Internal Revenue, 314 U.S. 326 (1941)); see Critical Mass Energy Project v. Nuclear Regulatory

Comm'n, 975 F.2d 871, 876 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (en banc), cert. denied, 113 S. Ct. 1579 (1993). Were

matters otherwise, the finality of our appellate decisions would yield to constant conflicts within the

circuit. 314 U.S. at 335. One three-judge panel, therefore, does not have the authority to overrule

another three-judge panel of the court. E.g., United States v. Caldwell, 543 F.2d 1333, 1370 n.19

(D.C. Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 1087 (1976). That power may be exercised only by the full

court, either through an en banc decision, id., or pursuant to the more informal, and dubious, practice

adopted in Irons v. Diamond, 670 F.2d 265, 268 n.11 (D.C. Cir. 1981). While the law-of-the-case

doctrine allows for certain exceptionsalthough not, to be sure, the one the majority invents

todaythe law-of-the-circuit doctrine does not. Thus, in circuits such as ours, where both doctrines

are at work, the more exacting law-of-the-circuit doctrine supplants the law-of-the-case doctrine

when panels hear multiple appeals from a single case. See, e.g., United States v. 162.20 Acres of

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Land, 733 F.2d 377, 379 (5th Cir. 1984) (explaining that when a prior panel in the same circuit has

decided an issue, law-of-the-circuit doctrine supplants law-of-the-case doctrine and precludes

reconsideration of that decision in a subsequent appeal, even ifthe second panel believesthe first was

wrong), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1158 (1985); cf. Laffey v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 740 F.2d 1071,

1077 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (holding that both the law of the case and the law of the circuit precluded a

panel from reconsidering issues resolved in a prior appeal in the same case), cert. denied, 469 U.S.

1181 (1985).

Until today, the law-of-the-circuit doctrine was completely settled, thoroughly understood

and uniformly honoredby the two judges in the majority and the other judges of this court. See,

e.g., Ayuda v. Thornburgh, 919 F.2d 153, 154 (D.C. Cir. 1990) (Henderson, J., concurring); Air

Line Pilots Ass'n Int'l v. Eastern Air Lines, Inc., 863 F.2d 891, 930 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (Williams, J.,

concurring in denial of rehearing en banc), cert. dismissed, 501 U.S. 1283 (1991). Likewise, the

district judgesin this circuit have rightly assumed that a decision of one panel of this court represents

the law of the circuit. See, e.g., Feeling v. Kelly, 152 F.R.D. 670, 673 (D.D.C. 1994) (relying upon

LaShawn I to sustain the district court's pendent jurisdiction). 

Now things have changed. My two colleagues must admitand do admit, although rather

grudginglythat theyare todayoverruling the panel's decision in LaShawn I. This is beyond dispute.

The question the majorityopinion addressesis a question LaShawn I answered and answered in a way

directly contrary to the majority's disposition. LaShawn I explained that the District of Columbia's

statutory and regulatory scheme was "appropriately before us under our pendent jurisdiction," 990

F.2d at 1324; held that federal judicial authority to decide the case on pendent grounds was

"incontrovertible," id. at 1326; and affirmed the district court's exercise of that authority by

confirming its decision "entirely on the basis of local law," id. To put the matter starkly, the first

panelconsisting ofthen-ChiefJudge Mikva,Judge Sentelle and myselfdirected the district judge

not to consider federal claims and to revise the decree accordingly; a majority of the second

panelconsisting ofJudgeWilliams and JudgeHendersonnowdirectsthe district judge to consider

federal claims and modify the decree accordingly. This is more than mere inconsistency. It is flat

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contradiction, andbecause we are one courtit is self-contradiction.

II

Perhaps I should end on this note. But so much else is wrong with what the majority has

written that I think it appropriate to say more. Apart from the law-of-the-circuit doctrine, the law

of the case foreclosed reopening the question my colleagues address, and the clear dictates of the

Supreme Court, the Congress, and the Constitution should have steered them away from the

conclusions they reach.

A

"When there are multiple appeals taken in the course of a single piece of litigation,

law-of-the-case doctrine holds that decisions rendered on the first appeal should not be revisited on

later trips to the appellate court." Crocker v. Piedmont Aviation, Inc., 49 F.3d 735, 739 (D.C. Cir.

1995), cert. denied, 64 U.S.L.W. 3203 (U.S. Oct. 2, 1995) (No. 95-96); see also Northwestern Ind.

Tel. Co. v. FCC, 872 F.2d 465, 471 (D.C. Cir. 1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1035 (1990). The

Supreme Court has instructed the lower courts to be "loathe" to reconsider issues already decided

"in the absence of extraordinary circumstances such as where the initial decision was "clearly

erroneous and would work a manifest injustice.' " Christianson v. Colt Indus. Operating Corp., 486

U.S. 800, 817 (1988) (quoting Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. 605, 618 n.8 (1983)). My colleagues

identify no such "extraordinary circumstance" here. They can point to no intervening change in

controlling legal authority. See McKesson Corp. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 52 F.3d 346, 350 (D.C.

Cir. 1995). They do not claim that LaShawn I was "clearly erroneous" or that it "would work a

manifest injustice." See Christianson, 486 U.S. at 817.

Instead, my colleagues invent for themselves an exception to the law-of-the-case doctrine

under which a subsequent panel is free to reexamine any "jurisdictional" question decided, but not

extensively discussed, by an earlier panel in an earlier appeal of the same case. This invention is no

doubt convenient as my colleaguesstruggle to reach the result they want here. Unfortunately, it also

contradicts both the Supreme Court's 1988 decision in Christianson v. Colt Industries Operating

Corp. and our own very recent decision in Crocker v. Piedmont Aviation, Inc.

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First, those decisionsmake clearthat it is of no moment that the three-judge panelin LaShawn

I devoted little space to the topic that now grabs the attention of two of my other colleagues. As the

Supreme Court held in Christianson, the law-of-the-case doctrine turns "on whether a court

previously decide[d] upon a rule of law ... not whether, or how well, it explained the decision." 486

U.S. at 817 (internal quotation marks omitted). And in Crocker, 49 F.3d at 739, we held that the

law-of-the-case doctrine applies to questions decided "explicitly or by necessary implication." The

majority admits as much (maj. op. at 5), but then argues that the issues "most strongly inviting a

relaxed application of law of the case are those that the prior decision never explicitly confronted"

(maj. op. at 9). This is doubly wrong. It misstates LaShawn I and it misstates the law. While

LaShawn I did not provide a detailed analysis of United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs, 383 U.S.

715 (1966), doubtless because the District did not rest its appeal on any supposed lack of pendent

jurisdiction, the law-of-the-case doctrine depends not on how extensively the earlier panel discussed

the particular issue, but on whether it decided it, as LaShawn I assuredly did.

Second, the Supreme Court in Christianson specifically rejected the "jurisdictional question"

exception the majority manufactures for this case. The Court there said that the law-of-the-case

doctrine prohibits a federal court from revisiting another federal court's decision to transfer a case to

it so long as the transferee court finds the transfer decision "plausible." 486 U.S. at 819. The Court

explained:

There is no reason to apply law-of-the-case principles less rigorously to transfer

decisions that implicate the transferee's jurisdiction. Perpetual litigation of any

issuejurisdictional or nonjurisdictionaldelays, and therefore threatens to deny,

justice.

Id. at 816-17 n.5. In reaching that conclusion, the Court rejected Potomac Passengers Ass'n v.

Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. Co., 520 F.2d 91, 95 n.22 (D.C. Cir. 1975), in which this court first

suggested that the law-of-the-case doctrine might not preclude reconsideration of jurisdictional

questions. Id. The majority acknowledges the Supreme Court's rejection of Potomac Passengers,

but then inexplicably ignores it. It is true, as the majority states, that Potomac Passengers was

"widely cited for the proposition that jurisdictional questions are relatively unrestrained by law of the

case" (maj. op. at 7), but that was before Christianson. In the seven years since Christianson, only

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3DiLaura v. Power Authority of the State of New York, 982 F.2d 73, 76-77 (2d Cir. 1992), the

only other post-Christianson decision the majority cites in support of its law-of-the-case

exception, also concerns only the authority of a district court to alter its non-final decisions. 

two federal courts have even mentioned Potomac Passengers, and then only to bolster the

unremarkable conclusion that a district court is free to reconsider its own non-final jurisdictional

decisions. Matek v. Murat, 862 F.2d 720, 724 n.1 (9th Cir. 1988); Travelers Indem. Co. v.

Household Int'l, Inc., 775 F. Supp. 518, 530 (D. Conn. 1991).3 The majority cites no case since

Christianson in which a federal appellate court hasreversed a jurisdictional decision made by a prior

merits panel. Today, of course, this court and other courts of appeals routinely apply law-of-the-case

preclusion to questions of jurisdiction, see, e.g., McKesson Corp., 52 F.3d at 350; Oneida Indian

Nation of NewYork v. State of NewYork, 860 F.2d 1145, 1151 (2d Cir. 1988), cert. denied, 493 U.S.

871 (1989), and do so even when the first decision regarding jurisdiction is less than explicit. See,

e.g., In re Memorial Estates, Inc., 950 F.2d 1364, 1367 (7th Cir. 1991), cert. denied, 504 U.S. 986

(1992).

So where does the majority derive the inspiration for itsinvention? Hunting far and wide for

something, anything, to counteract the force of Christianson and Crocker, the majority comes up

with a strange source of supportPennhurst State School & Hospital v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89

(1984) ("Pennhurst II"). No matter that Pennhurst II decided nothing about the law-of-the-case

doctrine, in fact did not even mention it. It is enough for the majority that the Supreme Court said

in Pennhurst II that it does not consider itself bound by decisions on questions of jurisdiction made

sub silentio in previous cases "when a subsequent case finally brings the jurisdictional issue" to the

Court. 465 U.S. at 119 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). But that plainly has nothing

to do with this appeal. The cited portion of Pennhurst II dealt with the stare decisis effect of

decisions in other cases, not the effect of earlier decisions by the same appellate court in the same

case.

It would take a mighty leap to get from Pennhurst II to the majority's newly-coined rule that

an appellate court may freely revisit jurisdictional questionsit decided in an earlier appeal ofthe same

case. My colleagues make the attempt, but predictably fall well short. While acknowledging that the

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4

In Pennhurst State School & Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1 (1981) ("Pennhurst I"), the

Court eliminated one federal basis for a consent decree, then remanded the case to the court of

appeals to determine if state law or federal constitutional or statutory grounds could support the

decree. Id. at 31. Pennhurst I did not decide whether the Eleventh Amendment would bar a

federal court from granting relief against a state on pendent state-law claims. Rather, in directing

the court of appeals to consider whether state law could support the decree, the Court directed

the court of appeals to consider that question. Only after the court of appeals held on remand that

state law alone was sufficient to support the order, 673 F.2d 647 (3d Cir. 1982) (en banc), did the

Supreme Court squarely confront the Eleventh Amendment question. Since the Court had not

faced the question before Pennhurst II, it had not established any law of the case to apply. 

Supreme Court never addressed the law-of-the-case doctrine in Pennhurst II (maj. op. at 10), they

declarehere comes the jumpthat the Court "acted" as if the majority's new law-of-the-case

exception already existed (maj. op. at 9). The majority's theory has two flaws, both fatal. First, the

Supreme Court had no reason to "act" as if the majority's new law-of-the-case exception already

existed in Pennhurst II because there was no law-of-the-case issue there at all.4 Second, regardless

of how the majority thinksthe Supreme Court "acted" in Pennhurst II, the Court clearly rejected the

majority's "jurisdictional question" exception four years later in Christianson.

B

Even if my colleagues were free to create an exception to the law-of-the-case doctrine for

"jurisdictional questions," they still would face a major problem here: the application of Gibbs step

two is not, as they claim, "jurisdictional," see (maj. op. at 12). It becomes "jurisdictional" in my

colleagues' eyes only because they must see it this way. Otherwise, there is no explaining why they

ignore the law of the case and take it upon themselves to reexamine this court's earlier holding in

LaShawn I. And so they form a perfect circle: Gibbs step two is jurisdictional because it requires

continuous reexamination (maj. op. at 11), and it requires continuous reexamination because it is

jurisdictional (maj. op. at 13). There is, however, a rubthe Supreme Court and the lower federal

courts have uniformly recognized that the second step of the Gibbs analysis is decidedly not

jurisdictional. The matter is discretionary. Here the discretion had already been exercisedin

LaShawn Iin favor of resolving the case entirely on pendent local law grounds.

Obviously, the concept of pendent jurisdiction entails a jurisdictional element, but that is

comprised in the first step of the Gibbs analysis. See Wal-Juice Bar, Inc. v. Elliott, 899 F.2d 1502,

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1503 (6th Cir. 1990); District of Columbia Common Cause v. District of Columbia, 858 F.2d 1, 10

(D.C. Cir. 1988); Dimond v. District of Columbia, 792 F.2d 179, 188 (D.C. Cir. 1986); Financial

Gen. Bankshares, Inc. v. Metzger, 680 F.2d 768, 772 (D.C. Cir. 1982). Step one of Gibbs deals with

the court's "power" to hear pendent local law claimsits jurisdictionwhen the case raises a

"substantial" federal issue and the federal and local law claims "derive from a common nucleus of

operative fact" and "are such that [the plaintiff] would ordinarily be expected to try them all in one

proceeding." Gibbs, 383 U.S. at 725. The federal courts' subject matter jurisdiction, to the extent

Congress authorizes it, is derived directly from Article III, Section 2, extending the judicial "Power"

to "all Cases in Law and Equity arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States...."

U.S. CONST. art. III, § 2; see also Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Thompson, 478 U.S. 804,

807 (1986); United States Parole Comm'n v. Geraghty, 445 U.S. 388, 395-96 (1980). The doctrine

of pendent jurisdiction rests on the idea that the court's jurisdiction over the underlying federal claim

brings the related pendent claims under the scope of Article III because they are part of the same

"case" or "controversy." See Gibbs, 383 U.S. at 725; Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 22 U.S.

(9 Wheat.) 738, 821-23 (1824). Gibbs' requirements of a substantial federal claim, a common

nucleus of operative fact, and the expectation of one trial, 383 U.S. at 725, "serve[ ] as an operational

definition of the "one constitutional "case" ' language." Richard A. Matasar, Rediscovering "One

Constitutional Case": Procedural Rules and the Rejection of the Gibbs Test for Supplemental

Jurisdiction, 71 CAL. L. REV. 1399, 1416 (1983).

There can be not the slightest doubt here that the children's claims under federalstatutory law,

the Constitution, and District of Columbia law all arise from a common set of facts. The district

court'sjurisdictionits powerto decide the local law claimsthusturned on the substantiality ofthe

underlying federal claims. Whether a court may decide pendent claims is determined on the face of

the pleadings. Contrary to what the majority tells us, the ultimate disposition of the federal claim is

"immaterial on the question of power." 13B CHARLES A. WRIGHT, ARTHUR R. MILLER & EDWARD

H. COOPER, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 3567.1, at 114-15 (1995).

Once a district court finds a substantial federal claim, it has jurisdiction over the entire case.

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5While it is true that the Supreme Court in Gibbs explained that the step two question remains

open through "the litigation," the Court meant only that the question need not be decided forever

on the pleadings, but could be reconsidered during pretrial proceedings or even the trial itself. 

See Gibbs, 383 U.S. at 727. While it may be true that a district court can relinquish its pendent

jurisdiction even after trial, see (maj. op. at 12), the majority has identified no case in which that

question was revisited after a trial, an appeal, a remand, and another appeal. 

6Congress has also explicitly recognized the discretionary nature of the second step of the

Gibbs inquiry. The Judicial Improvement Act, enacted in 1990 and codified in part at 28 U.S.C. §

1367, states:

... in any civil action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction, the

district courts shall have supplemental jurisdiction over all other claims that are so

related to claims in the action within such original jurisdiction that they form part

of the same case or controversy under Article III of the United States Constitution.

The court then must engage in the second step of the Gibbs analysis and decide whether to exercise

that jurisdiction over the local or state law claims. This aspect of Gibbsthe so-called "key issue"

according to my colleaguesis not a jurisdictional determination. It is an entirely prudential one,

which is why Gibbs held that "pendent jurisdiction is a doctrine of discretion...." 383 U.S. at 726.5

To reach a contrary conclusion, the majority must misconstrue a decision of the Seventh Circuit and

then completely mischaracterize a decision of this circuit. In Maguire v. Marquette University, 814

F.2d 1213 (7thCir. 1987), the Seventh Circuit did not, asthe majority claims, call the Gibbsstep two

analysis jurisdictional. See maj. op. at 12. It applied that label only to the Gibbs "rule" that "if the

federal claims are dismissed before trial ... the state claims should be dismissed as well." See Gibbs,

383 U.S. at 726. The majority's mischaracterization of this court's decision in Minker v. Baltimore

Annual Conference of United Methodist Church, 894 F.2d 1354 (D.C. Cir. 1990), isfar worse. The

majority insinuates that the Minker court called Gibbs step two a "jurisdictional question." Maj. op.

at 13. It did no such thing. In Minker, this court said, "Our holding raises a new jurisdictional

question on remand." 894 F.2d at 1361. The new question left "on remand" was not a Gibbs

questionthis court handled that one itselfbut rather was whether the plaintiff had sufficientlypled

diversity to provide an independent basis of jurisdiction over his state-law claim. 894 F.2d at 1361.

That is a jurisdictional question all right, but it is not Gibbs step two.

Despite my colleagues' best efforts, then, Gibbs step two remains not a "jurisdictional

inquiry,"6but a prudential determination left to the discretion of the court that makes it. There is no

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28 U.S.C. § 1367(a) (italics added). When the federal claim drops out, the district court has

discretion to retain or dismiss the pendent local law claims: "The district courts may decline to

exercise supplemental jurisdiction over a claim in subsection (a)" for any of the reasons listed in §

1367(c)(1)-(4). 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c) (italics added).

The majority passes over § 1367 because this case began before the statute's effective date

(maj. op. at 11 n.3). But in attaching their jurisdictional label to Gibbs step two, my colleagues

should have paused to consider that § 1367 "codified the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction

developed by the Supreme Court in the case of United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs, 383

U.S. 715 (1966), and its progeny." Shanaghan v. Cahill, 58 F.3d 106, 109 (4th Cir. 1995); see

also Edmonson & Gallagher v. Alban Towers Tenants Ass'n, 48 F.3d 1260, 1266 (D.C. Cir.

1995). (The statute also did a good deal more by allowing the federal courts to exercise

jurisdiction over pendent parties, cf. Finley v. United States, 490 U.S. 545 (1989), as

distinguished from pendent claims. See David D. Siegel, Practice Commentary, 28 U.S.C.A. §

1367; FEDERAL COURTS STUDY COMMITTEE, REPORT OF THE FEDERAL COURTS STUDY

COMMITTEE, Part III, at 546-68 (Apr. 2, 1990 & July 1, 1990).) 

other wayto explain Schmidt v. Oakland Unified School District, 457 U.S. 594, 595 (1982), inwhich

the Supreme Court held that a federal court's decision whether to resolve pendent local law claims

was to be reviewed for abuse of discretion. See also Edmonson & Gallagher v. Alban Towers

Tenants Ass'n, 48 F.3d 1260, 1265-66 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (Williams, J.) ("Whether actually to decide

[the local-law claims] is a matter left to the sound discretion of the district court.... We review for

abuse of discretion.").

The majoritypurportsto applythatstandard here, apparentlyconcluding that the district court

abused its discretion in "fail[ing] to consider the impact of Gibbs step 2 factorsparticularly

considerations of comityon its exercise of jurisdiction...." Maj. op. at 18. What discretion? The

district court did not address Gibbs step two on remand and for good reason: this court already had

done so. See LaShawn I, 990 F.2d at 1326. The district court, in other words, had no discretion to

abuse. It was bound by the holding in LaShawn I. See In re Ivan F. Boesky Securities Litigation,

957 F.2d 65, 68 (2d Cir. 1992) (explaining that the law-of-the-case doctrine leaves a district court

"no discretion" in carrying out an appellate court's directions on remand). If we suppose that the

district court abused its discretion in complying with our ruling in LaShawn I, what, according to the

majority, should the district court have done?

III

The majority's handiwork thus far ought to be enough to leave the district judge thoroughly

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7

It is a mystery to me why the majority assigns this task to the district court, rather than to

itself. The questions posed are questions of law, and this court is in as good a position to decide

them as the district court. The majority's assignment sets the stage for yet another appeal, and the

district judge must be as baffled as I am by this court's conflicting commands. 

confused, but my colleagues are not finished yet. For the remand, they direct the district court to

apply an entirely new set of pendent jurisdiction rules and then to ignore the clear direction of

Congress in interpreting the federal statutory scheme at the center of this case.

A

On remand, the majoritydeclares, the district court must "examine[] the validityofthe federal

claims" and determine whether "any federal groundssurvive that could support an injunction." Maj.

op. at 2, 19.7 This direction happens to conflict directly with Rosado v. Wyman, 397 U.S. 397, 405

(1970), which is relegated to a footnote in the majority opinion. In Rosado v. Wyman, the Supreme

Court roundlyrejected the idea that "once a federal court loses power over the jurisdiction-conferring

claim, it may not consider a pendent claim." 397 U.S. at 404. Just as a federal court does not lose

jurisdiction over a diversity action if one of the parties moves while the appeal is pending, a federal

court does not lose pendent jurisdiction over the local law claims if the federal claims are decided

against the plaintiff or otherwise drop out of the case. Id. at 405 & n.6. In the Supreme Court's

words, Rosado holds that there is no requirement that a federal court have "jurisdiction over the

primary claim at all stages of the litigation as a prerequisite to resolution of the pendent claim," id.

at 405a holding completely at odds with the majority's proposition that even now, after an

extensive trial and two appeals, the pendent jurisdiction already exercised must be undone unlessthe

plaintiffs' local law claims remain closely intertwined with "winning" federal claims. Under Rosado,

even if the first panel had reversed the judgment to the extent the district court found the District in

violation of federal law, pendent jurisdiction over the local law claims would still exist, and the

extensive violations of local law would support the decree.

Having made a shambles of Gibbsstep two and of Rosado v. Wyman, the majority lays waste

to what remains of the law of pendent jurisdiction. Unlike plaintiffs in any other case ever decided

by the federal courts, the plaintiffs here may retain their victory on their local law claims only if it

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turns out that they had "winning" federal claims. Maj. op. at 18. "Winning"? Where does this idea

come from? Gibbs and the cases following it require only that the federal claim asserted in the

complaint be "substantial," that is, that it "have substance sufficient to confer subject matter

jurisdiction on the court," a principle derived from Levering & Garrigues Co. v. Morrin, 289 U.S.

103 (1933). Gibbs, 383 U.S. at 725. According to Levering, "jurisdiction, as distinguished from

merits, is wanting where the claim set forth in the pleading is plainly unsubstantial ... either because

[it is] obviously without merit, or "because its unsoundness so clearly results from the previous

decisions of [the Supreme] court as to foreclose the subject and leave no room for the inference that

the questions sought to be raised can be the subject of controversy.' " 289 U.S. at 105-06 (italics

added) (quoting Hannis Distilling Co. v. Mayor of Baltimore, 216 U.S. 285, 288 (1910)). A federal

question is therefore "substantial" for purposes of pendent jurisdiction if it is not "so attenuated and

unsubstantial as to be absolutely devoid of merit," "wholly insubstantial," "obviously frivolous," or

"no longer open to discussion." Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U.S. 528, 536-37 (1974) (internal quotation

marks and citations omitted); see also District of Columbia Common Cause, 858 F.2d at 10; Town

of W. Hartford v. Operation Rescue, 991 F.2d 1039, 1049 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 114 S. Ct. 185

(1993); Matasar, supra, 71 CAL. L. REV. at 1419. The Court explained in Hagans: "The limiting

words "wholly' and "obviously' have cogent legal significance.... [T]hose words import that claims

are constitutionally insubstantial only if the prior decisions inescapably render the claims frivolous;

previous decisions that merely render claims of doubtful or questionable merit do not render them

insubstantial...." 415 U.S. at 537-38.

In requiring the district court to find a "winning" federal claim as a prerequisite to exercising

jurisdiction over pendent local law claims, my colleagues have thus overruled the Supreme Court's

decisions in Levering, Hagans, and Gibbsa tall order for two judges of an inferior federal court.

Given their treatment of Supreme Court precedents, it islittle wonder that my colleagues also

mow down two decisions of this court bearing directly on the issue they think needs deciding. In

District of Columbia Common Cause v. District of Columbia, 858 F.2d at 10, we upheld solely on

pendent local law grounds an injunction against the District ofColumbia prohibiting it from spending

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8The majority relies on Evans v. City of Chicago, 10 F.3d 474 (7th Cir. 1993) (en banc), cert.

denied, 114 S. Ct. 1831 (1994) (Evans III), to support its conclusion that the second part of the

Gibbs analysis is a jurisdictional inquiry. Evans III is not on point. The Seventh Circuit reached

the result it did because no substantial claim whatsoeverfederal or localunderlay the district

court's order. Evans III does not even discuss the question of pendent jurisdiction, since the only

local claims at issue there were part of the plaintiffs' constitutional due process theory. 10 F.3d at

476. A prior appellate panel, Evans v. City of Chicago, 873 F.2d 1007 (7th Cir. 1989) (Evans

II), rejected both of the plaintiffs' constitutional challenges to the City of Chicago's practice of

paying some judgments earlier than others. That panel explicitly held that the City had not

violated the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection, id. at 1015-18, and according to Evans

III, there was "little doubt that Evans II would have repulsed a due process argument had the

plaintiffs presented it for decision," 10 F.3d at 480-81. Given the absence of a substantial federal

claim, the Evans III court held that the district court had no jurisdiction to enforce the consent

decree. The "bare consent of the officeholder" was not a sufficient basis for imposing obligations

on the City. Id. at 479.

Here, it is not the "bare consent" of the District that supports the consent decree. As this

court held, the decree rests on the District's flagrant and repeated violations of District of

Columbia law. LaShawn I, 990 F.2d at 1325. For purposes of this appeal, Evans III

demonstrates, if anything, only that the first part of the Gibbs inquirythe substantiality of the

underlying federal claimis jurisdictional.

Nor does Angela R. ex rel. Hesselbein v. Clinton, 999 F.2d 320 (8th Cir. 1993), support

the majority's holding. In that case, as here, the federal claims against the governor of Arkansas

and the director of the state's Department of Human Services were based in the Constitution, the

Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, 42 U.S.C. §§ 620-628, 670-679, and the

Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 5101-5106a. 999 F.2d at 322. The

court recognized the uncertainty of the constitutional claims of those children not in foster care. 

Moreover, it noted that the analysis in Suter v. Artist M., 503 U.S. 347 (1992), "might ultimately

compel the conclusion that the ... federal statutes upon which plaintiffs rely do not create an

enforceable private right of action on their behalf." 999 F.2d at 323, 324. Nevertheless, because

these questions went to the merits of the plaintiffs' claims and did not "inescapably render the

claims frivolous," it held the district court clearly had jurisdiction to enter a consent decree

resolving the dispute. Id. at 324 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Thus, as to the

question whether the plaintiffs here have federal claims substantial enough to support the district

court's exercising pendent jurisdiction over their local law claims, Angela R. supports a conclusion

directly contrary to the majority's.

public funds to oppose citizens' initiatives. Far from determining whether a winning federal claim

supported the injunction, we refused to decide the merits of the federal claim (much as did the panel

in LaShawn I) because it was not "so attenuated and unsubstantial as to be absolutely devoid of

merit," and was therefore substantial enough to support the pendent claims. Id. (citation omitted).

Dimond v. District of Columbia, 792 F.2d 179 (D.C. Cir. 1986), is to the same effect. We there

reversed the district court's ruling that a District of Columbia statute violated federal law. Although

the federal claimwas a loser, we considered it "substantial enough" to allow usto exercise jurisdiction

over the pendent local law claim and to decide it, which we did. 792 F.2d at 188.8

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The problem in Angela R. was not jurisdictional, but centered on "future enforcement of

[the] obligations" imposed by the decree. Id. The Eighth Circuit concluded that the consent

decree did not resolve specifically enough how it was to be enforced, and that the district court

therefore abused its discretion in approving it. Id. at 325. Because Angela R. was a suit against

state officials, Eleventh Amendment concerns made it particularly important that the decree's

enforcement provisions were consensual and plain. Id. at 325-26. Those concerns are not

present here. See infra pp. 17-18. 

9For purposes of 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Congress has indicated that the District of Columbia

should be treated as a municipal government. H.R. REP. NO. 548, 96th Cong., 1st Sess. 2 (1979). 

After noting that municipalities may be liable for § 1983 violations under Monell v. City of New

York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), the House report stated: "That decision leaves the District of

Columbia government and its officers as the only persons in the United States or its territories

who are not subject to Section 1983 liability." H.R. REP. NO. 548, supra, at 2. By contrast, §

1983 does not abrogate the Eleventh Amendment immunity accorded to States. Quern v. Jordan,

440 U.S. 332, 340-41 (1979); Alabama v. Pugh, 438 U.S. 781 (1978) (per curiam). 

The majority ignores Dimond but attempts to distinguish District of Columbia Common

Cause on the ground that the injunction there wassomehow inoffensive to the notion of "comity" the

majority tries to fashion out of its favorite recurring non sequitur, Pennhurst II. Maj. op. at 17-18.

Pennhurst II is an exceedingly odd, indeed astonishing,source for the majority's views on the comity

this court owes local District of Columbia courts. Odd because Pennhurst II dealt with something

no one would have dreamed this case involvedthe Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution.

Exceedingly odd because the Eleventh Amendment confersimmunity on the statesfrom certain suits

in federal court, and when last I checked, the District of Columbia was not a state. Astonishing

because the majority nonetheless finds that Pennhurst II and the Eleventh Amendment somehow

"suggest that, in general, injunctions against nonfederal officials based on nonfederal law should be

disfavored." Maj. op. at 15-16.

It is hard to take this seriously. The Eleventh Amendment prohibits federal courts from

entertaining "suit[s] in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States."

U.S. CONST. amend. XI (italics added). That eliminates the District of Columbia. I would have

thought that judges in this circuit needed no reminding that the District is not a sovereign state,

separate from the federal government. It is the seat of our national government, and it is subject to

Congress' plenary authority under Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution.9See Palmore

v. United States, 411 U.S. 389, 397 (1973). Although inhabitants of the District today possess, to

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10Committee of Blind Vendors of the District of Columbia v. District of Columbia, 28 F.3d

130 (D.C. Cir. 1994), is likewise of little value here because it concerned not the comity federal

courts owe District of Columbia courts, but the respect owed the District's administrative

agencies in a statutory scheme in which Congress specifically said that the District of Columbia

should be treated like a state. See 28 F.3d at 132 n.1. 

some degree, the power of self-government, District of Columbia Self-Government and

Governmental Reorganization Act, Pub. L. No. 93-198, 87 Stat. 774 (1973), they hold that power

at Congress' forbearance, and it isfar from absolute. Congress has "reserve[d] the right, at any time,

to exercise its constitutional authority as legislature for the District, by enacting legislation for the

District on any subject ... including legislation to amend or repeal any law in force in the District ...

and any act passed by the [District] Council." Id. § 601. The District government must submit any

law it enactsto Congress, which can disapprove the law within 30 days. Id. § 602(c)(1). The District

maymake no expenditures, even offundsit raisesthrough its ownmeans ofrevenue collection, unless

approved by an act of Congress. Id. § 446.

The District is thus a distinctly federal entity, "truly sui generis in our governmental

structure." District of Columbia v. Carter, 409 U.S. 418, 432 (1973). A suit in federal court against

a federal entity "is hardly the instrument of a distant, disconnected sovereign," Hess v. Port Auth.

Trans-Hudson Corp., 115 S. Ct. 394, 401 (1994), and thusraises none ofthe concernsthat underpin

the Eleventh Amendment or the Supreme Court's application of it in Pennhurst II. Accordingly, the

casesthe majority cites concerning the comity owed statesAngela R. ex rel. Hesselbein v. Clinton,

999 F.2d 320 (8th Cir. 1993), and Evans v. Buchanan, 468 F. Supp. 944 (D. Del. 1979)are

irrelevant here.10

Stripped of their faulty Eleventh Amendment underpinnings, my colleagues' views on the

comity owed District of Columbia courtsturn solely on their misunderstanding ofthe Gibbsstep two

analysis. The majority seems to think that the existence of local law claims automatically counsels

against the exercise of jurisdiction over them. If that were true, pendent jurisdiction would never

exist. But as this court has made clear, it is the extent to which a local law issue is "novel and

unsettled"and not its mere existencethat might counsel against the exercise of jurisdiction.

Compare Financial Gen. Bankshares, Inc. v. Metzger, 680 F.2d 768, 775 (D.C. Cir. 1982) (district

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11The district court found the District in violation of six provisions of the Act. See infra note

13. 

court abused its discretion in exercising pendent jurisdiction over "novel and unsettled" local law

issues) and Grano v. Barry, 733 F.2d 164, 169 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (rejecting pendent jurisdiction over

"novel and unsettled" local law issues) with Dimond v. District of Columbia, 792 F.2d at 189 (where

local law issues were neither novel nor unsettled, uncertainty in local law could not weigh heavily

against the exercise of pendent jurisdiction). The majority has identified no such "novel and

unsettled" local law issues at stake here. To do so now, it would have to overrule yet another portion

of LaShawn I, in which this court held that District of Columbia law clearly provides private causes

of actions for all of the children in the plaintiff class. 990 F.2d at 1326.

B

This brings me to the majority's treatment of Suter v. Artist M., 503 U.S. 347 (1992), and the

statute Congress passed in the wake of that decision.

Suter held that one of the provisions of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of

1980, 42 U.S.C. §§ 620-627 and §§ 670-679 ("the Act"), upon which plaintiffs have relied, could not

be enforced through a private cause of action. In light of the Court's holding with respect to that

provision42U.S.C. § 671(a)(15)themajoritysuggeststhat the substantialityofthe federalclaims

asserted by those plaintiff children who are not in custody may be undermined because, in view of

Suter, they may not be able to enforce any of the Act's provisions.11 Maj. op at 26. And so the

majority instructs the district court, on remand, to consider the effect of Suter.

That instruction collides with 42 U.S.C. § 1320a-2, a 1994 statute severely limiting Suter.

The statute provides:

In an action brought to enforce a provision of this chapter, such provision is not to

be deemed unenforceable because ofitsinclusion in a section ofthis chapter requiring

a State plan or specifying the required contents of a State plan. This section is not

intended to limit or expand the grounds for determining the availability of private

actionsto enforce State planrequirements otherthanbyoverturning anysuch grounds

applied in Suter v. Artist M., 112 S. Ct. 1360 (1992), but not applied in prior Supreme

Court decisions respecting such enforceability; provided, however, that this section

is not intended to alter the holding in Suter v. Artist M. that section 671(a)(15) of this

title is not enforceable in a private right of action.

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12Before Suter, federal courts had sustained private actions brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to

enforce the Act's provisions. See, e.g., Timmy S. v. Stumbo, 916 F.2d 312, 316 (6th Cir. 1990)

(determining that the "reasonable promptness" provision of 42 U.S.C. § 671(a)(12) is enforceable

under 42 U.S.C. § 1983); L.J. ex rel. Darr v. Massinga, 838 F.2d 118, 123 (4th Cir. 1988), cert.

denied, 488 U.S. 1018 (1989) (holding the substantive requirements listed in § 671(a)(9), (10) &

(16) enforceable under § 1983); Lynch v. Dukakis, 719 F.2d 504, 512 (1st Cir. 1983)

(concluding that the case plan requirements of § 671(a)(16) and § 675(1) & (5)(B) are

enforceable under § 1983). 

Id. Theorizing that Congress may have been "misled" or "confused" by the language of Suter (maj.

op. at 24-25), my colleagues essentially conclude that thisstatute has no effect at all. Maj. op. at 25-

26. They claim that the first sentence of § 1320a-2 means nothing because Suter did not turn solely

on the fact that the provision at issue was included in the state plan requirement. That point might

be well taken, but what about the next sentence? There, Congress specifically directed the federal

courts to use the same "grounds for determining the availability of private actions" they used before

Suter and to disregard any new groundsthe Supreme Court first applied in Suter. This direction may

be understood only in light of the dissenting opinion in Suter, which claimed that the Suter majority

had "changed the rules of the game" for finding private rights of action under § 1983. See 503 U.S.

at 377 (Blackmun, J., dissenting). Rightly or wrongly, Congress credited the dissenters' view. "The

intent of this provision," the Conferees stated, "is to assure that individuals who have been injured

by a State's failure to comply with the Federal mandates of the State plan titles of the Social Security

Act are able to seek redress in the federal courts to the extent they were able to prior to the decision

in Suter v. Artist M....." H.R. CONF. REP. NO. 761, 103d Cong., 2d Sess. 926 (1994) (italics added).

Two district courts have considered § 1320a-2 and have so read the provision. See Harris v. James,

883 F. Supp. 1511, 1519 (D. Ala. 1995) (explaining that in § 1320a-2, Congress "mandated that

courts continue to apply a pre-Suter approach"); Jeanine B. ex rel. Blondis v. Thompson, 877 F.

Supp. 1268, 1283 (D. Wis. 1995) (explaining that § 1320a-2 requires courts to " "rewind the clock'

and look to cases prior to Suter to determine the enforceability of other provisions").12

My colleagues see things differently. They say that because Congress did not identify the

specific Suter "grounds" it wished to reject, it must not have meant to reject any grounds. Maj. op.

at 26. Even if that argument made any sense, it still would directly contradict both the language of

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the Suter amendment, which overturns "any such grounds" applied in Suter but not applied in prior

Supreme Court decisions, see 42 U.S.C. § 1320a-2, and the "hornbook law" presumption against

"interpreting a statute in a way which rendersit ineffective," see Federal Trade Comm'n v. Manager,

Retail Credit Co., Miami Beach Branch Office, 515 F.2d 988 (D.C. Cir. 1975).

In short, Congress has directed the federal courts not to consider Suter in deciding whether

there may be private enforcement of the Act, while my colleagues have directed the district court to

do just the opposite.

Congress' command raises constitutional problems of its own. Congress may not prescribe

rules of decision for cases pending in the federal courts. See United States v. Klein, 80 U.S. (13

Wall.) 128, 146-48 (1871); Seattle Audubon Soc'y v. Robertson, 914 F.2d 1311, 1314-15 (9th Cir.

1990), rev'd on other grounds, 503 U.S. 429 (1992). But cf. Plaut v. Spendthrift Farms, Inc., 115

S. Ct. 1447, 1457 (1995). And it is far from certain whether Congress may, consistent with principles

of separation of powers and the independence of the judicial branch, direct the lower federal courts

to disregard the reasoning of an otherwise binding Supreme Court decision.

There is no reason why the district court, and ultimately this court,should have to ponder this

serious question or the other constitutional issues the majority sends back to it, issues raised by the

dictuminDeShaney v. WinnebagoCounty Department of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189 (1989), with

respect to the in-custody children. Maj. op. at 18 n.9. For more than a century, the Supreme Court

has endorsed the practice of deciding cases on the basis of a pendent state- law claim in order to

avoid constitutional questions. Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Auth., 297 U.S. 288, 346-47 (1936)

(Brandeis, J., concurring); Siler v. Louisville & Nashville R.R., 213 U.S. 175, 193 (1909); Santa

Clara County v. Southern Pacific R.R., 118 U.S. 394 (1886). Pennhurst II itself stressed that

nothing in its decision regarding the immunity of states under the Eleventh Amendment was "meant

to cast doubt on the desirability of applying the principle [of avoiding constitutional questions] in

cases where the federal court has jurisdiction to decide the state-law issues." 465 U.S. at 118-19

n.28. And in a later case, the Supreme Court held that it was an abuse of discretion for a court of

appeals to reach a federal constitutional question when it could have avoided doing so by deciding

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13Specifically, the court found the District in violation of the following requirements imposed

upon recipients of federal funding for child welfare programs: (1) 42 U.S.C. § 5106a(b)(2)

(requiring prompt investigations into reports of abuse or neglect and necessary action to protect

welfare of abused or neglected children), 762 F. Supp. at 968-70; (2) 42 U.S.C. § 5106a(b)(3)

(requiring demonstration of program to ensure effective treatment of child abuse and neglect

cases), 762 F. Supp. at 970; (3) 42 U.S.C. § 671(a)(15) (requiring provision of services to enable

a child for whom a report has been made to remain in the home or, if removal is necessary, to

the case on pendent state-law grounds. Schmidt v. Oakland Unified Sch. Dist., 457 U.S. at 595.

The majority opinion turns the table upside down. Again ignoring higher authority, the

majority orders the district court to abuse its discretion by deciding the constitutional issues.

IV

It is time to bring this opinion to a close. The majority's opinion disregards the law of this

court and of the Supreme Court. My colleagues do not like the idea of a federal district court issuing

a decree to govern local institutions. Nor do I, nor, for that matter, does the district judge in this

case. But we are sworn to uphold the law. I therefore dissent.

ADDENDUM

The case went to trial four years ago. Two weeks of testimony revealed the District of

Columbia's deficient, inept administration of its foster care system. This testimony, together with

more than a thousand admissions offact by the District,showed that District officials had consistently

failed to carry out responsibilitiesimposed on them by federal and local laws. LaShawn A. v. Dixon,

762 F. Supp. 959, 960, 986-87 (D.D.C. 1991). These were far from minor infractions. The

transgressions psychologically, emotionally and physically harmed those children in the District's

foster care system and those children who, although not yet in the District's care, were known to the

District because of reported abuse and neglect. Id. at 987.

The district court thus reached the "inescapable conclusion" that the District's foster care

system complied with neither "federal law, District law, [n]or, for those plaintiffs in the District's

foster care, the United States Constitution." Id. at 960-61. The District's administration of its foster

care systemviolated numerous provisions ofthe AdoptionAssistance andChild Welfare Act of 1980,

42 U.S.C. §§ 620-627 and §§ 670-679, and the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, 42

U.S.C. §§ 5101-5106.13 The Adoption Assistance Act, the court held, conferred upon the plaintiffs

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enable the child to return home as quickly as possible), 762 F. Supp. at 970; (4) 42 U.S.C. §

672(e) (mandating that a child return home within 180 days unless a judicial determination has

been made that foster care placement is in the child's best interests), 762 F. Supp. at 971; (5) 42

U.S.C. § 675(5)(A) (requiring procedures to assure children are placed in least restrictive

settings), 762 F. Supp. at 971; (6) 42 U.S.C. § 675(1) (requiring timely preparation of case plans

containing specific information), 762 F. Supp. at 972-73; (7) 42 U.S.C. § 675(5)(B) (requiring

review of child's status at least every six months), 762 F. Supp. at 974; and (8) 42 U.S.C. §

627(a)(2)(A) (requiring operation of information system from which status, location and goals for

placement of all foster care children may be readily determined), 762 F. Supp. at 976-77. 

rights that were privately enforceable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which the District had violated by

depriving plaintiffs of those rights. 762 F. Supp. at 988-90.

The district court also found that the District's operation of its foster care system violated

numerous provisions of the District's Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect Act of 1977, D.C. Law

2-22 (Sept. 23, 1977) (codified as amended at D.C. CODE ANN. §§ 2-1351 to -1357, §§ 6-2101 to

-2107, §§ 6-2121 to -2127, and §§ 16-2351 to -2365); the Youth Residential Facilities Licensure Act

of 1986, D.C. Law 6-139 (Aug. 13, 1986) (codified as amended at D.C. CODE ANN. §§ 3-801 to -

808); and the Child and Family Services Division Manual of Operations (September 1985). The

District's obligations under its own laws parallel almost exactly the requirements of federal law.

LaShawn A. ex rel. Moore v. Kelly, 990 F.2d 1319, 1324 (D.C. Cir. 1993) ("LaShawn I").

Analogizing the rights of children in foster care to rights of those involuntarily committed, LaShawn,

762 F. Supp. at 992, the district court ruled that these laws conferred liberty and property interests,

protected under the Fifth Amendment, on the children in the custody of the District's foster care

system, id. at 994. The District had violated § 1983 by depriving the children in foster care of these

constitutionally protected interests. 762 F. Supp. at 998.

The parties worked out a remedial order designed to correct deficiencies in the District's

administration of its foster care system, and the district court entered it.

TheDistrict appealed, contending that the district court erred infinding that the administration

of the District's foster care system violated the Fifth Amendment and that the intervening decision in

Suter v. Artist M., 503 U.S. 347 (1992), precluded any private cause of action under § 1983 or

federal child welfare statutes. LaShawn I, 990 F.2d at 1321-22. Recognizing that the appeal raised

"complex constitutional and federal statutory issues," we held that it was unnecessary to reach the

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District's challenges. Id. at 1324. Under District law, children reported to have been abused or

neglected had a private right of action under the District's Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect

Act. Turner v. District of Columbia, 532 A.2d 662 (D.C. 1987). Because a government owes

greater duties toward those in its custody, we concluded that the children in the District's foster care

system also had a private right of action under the Act. LaShawn I, 990 F.2d at 1325. In addition,

we noted that the other District statute relied on by the children, the Youth Residential Facilities

Licensure Act, explicitly provides these children with a private cause of action to sue under the

Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect Act. Id. at 1325-26. These statutes, we held, "provide[d]

an independent basisforsupporting the district court'sjudgment." Id. at 1326. This court's authority

to decide the case entirelyon the pendent local claims, we stated, was "incontrovertible" under United

Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715 (1966).

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