Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/04pdf/04-278.pdf
Page Number: 9.0

6 

CASTLE ROCK v. GONZALES 

Opinion of the Court 

II 
The  Fourteenth  Amendment  to  the  United  States  Con-
stitution  provides  that  a  State  shall  not  “deprive  any 
person  of  life,  liberty,  or  property,  without  due  process  of 
law.”  Amdt.  14,  §1.    In  42  U. S. C.  §1983,  Congress  has 
created a federal cause of action for “the deprivation of any 
rights,  privileges,  or  immunities  secured  by  the  Constitu-
tion  and  laws.”  Respondent  claims  the  benefit  of  this 
provision  on  the  ground  that  she  had  a  property  interest 
in police enforcement of the restraining order against her 
husband; and that the town deprived her of this property 
without  due  process  by  having  a  policy  that  tolerated 
nonenforcement of restraining orders.

As  the  Court  of  Appeals  recognized,  we  left  a  similar 
question  unanswered  in  DeShaney  v.  Winnebago  County 
Dept.  of  Social  Servs.,  489  U. S.  189  (1989),  another  case 
with  “undeniably  tragic”  facts:  Local  child-protection 
officials had failed to protect a young boy from beatings by 
his  father  that  left  him  severely  brain  damaged.    Id.,  at 
191–193.  We held that the so-called “substantive” compo-
nent  of  the  Due  Process  Clause  does  not  “requir[e]  the 
State to protect the life, liberty, and property of its citizens 
against invasion by private actors.”  Id., at 195.  We noted, 
however,  that  the  petitioner  had  not  properly  preserved
the  argument  that—and  we  thus  “decline[d]  to  consider” 
whether—state  “child  protection  statutes  gave  [him]  an 
‘entitlement’  to  receive  protective  services  in  accordance 
with the terms of the statute, an entitlement which would 
enjoy due process protection.”  Id., at 195, n. 2. 

The  procedural  component  of  the  Due  Process  Clause 
does  not  protect  everything  that  might  be  described  as  a 
“benefit”: “To have a property interest in a benefit, a per-
son  clearly  must  have  more  than  an  abstract  need  or 
desire” and “more than a unilateral expectation of it.  He 
must,  instead,  have  a  legitimate  claim  of  entitlement  to
it.”  Board  of  Regents  of  State  Colleges  v.  Roth,  408  U. S.