Opinion ID: 432007
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Constitutionality of Mental Health Law

Text: Our court has recently upheld the NYMHL against a procedural due process challenge to the standards for voluntary, involuntary and emergency civil commitment under that law. Project Release v. Prevost, 722 F.2d 960 (2d Cir.1983). Appellants' challenge here carries the argument a step further. They allege that the New York civil commitment statutes are unconstitutional because they only examine who should be committed and how one should be committed. They [do] not require, quid pro quo, that adequate care be given the patient after involuntary civil commitment. Contrary to appellants' assertions, however, the NYMHL explicitly provides a right to care and treatment for institutionalized mental patients. § 33.03(a), appropriately captioned Quality of Care and Treatment, states: Each patient in a facility and each person receiving services for mental disability shall receive care and treatment that is suited to his needs and skillfully, safely, and humanely administered with full respect for his dignity and personal integrity. State regulations elaborate upon the requirements of this section, providing inter alia for individual service plans for each patient, nondiscriminatory treatment, an appropriate physical environment, and suitable medical care. See 14 N.Y.C.R.R. Part 27. Nor is this statutory right merely precatory. The NYMHL vests responsibility for insuring that patients receive statutorily-mandated care at several levels within the administrative hierarchy. The director of each state mental health facility must require the development of a written treatment plan to assure adequate care and treatment for each patient. NYMHL § 29.13(a). The State Office of Mental Health is charged with the duty of seeing that mentally ill persons are provided with care and treatment, that such care, treatment and rehabilitation is of high quality and effectiveness, and that the personal and civil rights of persons receiving care, treatment and rehabilitation are adequately protected. NYMHL § 7.07. And § 31.19 of the NYMHL requires the Commissioner of Mental Health, whenever he has reason to believe that the rights of institutionalized patients are being violated, to issue an order directed to the person who has committed the violation directing him to cease and desist. If this is unsuccessful, the Commissioner may seek an injunction or temporary restraining order from the New York Supreme Court barring the offending conduct. The power to enforce treatment rights does not rest solely within the state government. An individual who believes his statutory rights have been violated may seek to compel lawful action by means of a proceeding under Article 78 of the New York Civil Practice Law. Or, he may attempt to compel his release from a state institution through habeas corpus. NYMHL § 33.15. In addition, the state regulations establish a procedure whereby a patient may object to a specific treatment decision. 14 N.Y.C.R.R. § 27.8. This procedure was found to conform to constitutional requirements in Project Release v. Prevost, supra, 722 F.2d at 980-81. The NYMHL thus does provide, on its face, for a right to care and treatment for civilly committed residents of state mental institutions. Appellants also charge that the law is invalid as applied. To the extent this suggests that state officials are failing to comply with the state's own treatment requirements, we are foreclosed from entertaining the claim by the Supreme Court's second decision in Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 8 U.S. 8, 104 S.Ct. 900, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1984). Pennhurst II held that the Eleventh Amendment bars a federal court from ordering a state official to conform his conduct to state law. Alternatively, to the extent appellants mean to suggest that state action is consistent with its own law yet in violation of the Federal Constitution, that issue is subsumed by appellants' other constitutional claims, to which we now turn.