Opinion ID: 401024
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Responsibility for Planning, Direction and Coordinated Delivery of Services-The Base Service Unit:

Text: 30 The County Administrator shall be responsible to provide for the establishment of an organizational unit consisting of multidisciplinary professional and non-professional services for persons who are mentally retarded and in need of service from the County Program .... The Base Service Unit shall be responsible to perform the following functions in such a way as to carry out the objectives of the County Program as stated above. 31 . . . . 32 D. Provide for comprehensive diagnosis and evaluation services to: 33 . . . . 34 3. Develop a practical life-management plan for the individual and his family and provide the necessary counseling and following-along services; .... 35 These regulations make it clear that the legislative grant of power to the counties under § 301(e)(3) of the Act, 50 P.S. § 4301(e)(3), empowering them to establish additional services and programs designed to prevent ... the necessity of admitting or committing the mentally disabled to a facility was intended to be utilized by the counties to minimize the necessity of institutionalization. It was more than a mere grant of power to be used at the county's option. The power of the department to issue the regulations in question and to require the counties to assume the responsibilities set forth therein was clearly within the purview of section 201 of the Act, 50 P.S. § 4201, which charges the department to create a comprehensive and coordinate program in conjunction with the county governments. Moreover, any question as to the legislative recognition of the concept of normalization and the adoption of the doctrine of least restrictive alternatives in matters relating to the mentally retarded has been removed by the enactment of the Mental Health Procedures Act, Act of 1976, July 9, P.L. 817, No. 143, § 101; 50 P.S. § 7101. 36 429 A.2d at 636-37. 37 In the course of announcing that the MH/MR Act of 1966 embodied the least restrictive alternative means standard for achieving habilitation of the mentally retarded, the opinion of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court makes passing reference to the fact that the least restrictive alternative doctrine was first articulated by Chief Judge Bazelon in Lake v. Cameron, 364 F.2d 657 (D.C.Cir.1966), and subsequently adopted in a series of commitment and treatment related cases. 13 From the context, it is clear that the Court did not suggest that it was giving to the MH/MR Act of 1966 an interpretation not, perhaps, intended by the Pennsylvania legislature, but instead compelled by the federal constitution. Indeed the Attorney General does not suggest that the statutory interpretation of the MH/MR Act of 1966 announced in Schmidt is other than independent of federal law. 14 38 The Pennsylvania law ground of decision being entirely independent of federal law, the sole remaining state law question is whether that ground of decision is adequate to support the order appealed from. Except to the extent that we previously required modification of the order, we hold that it is. 39 This case, unlike Schmidt, is a class action. In our prior decision we held that because for some members of the plaintiff class institutionalization might well be the least restrictive available means of habilitation, it was error to order the complete closing of Pennhurst without individualized determinations of need. Addressing the Pennsylvania legislation we observed that 40 we do not think that the Pennsylvania legislature, in providing a right to treatment in the Mental Health and Mental Retardation Act of 1966, intended to foreclose all institutionalization. In section 102 of that Act, for example, the legislature expressly included institution(s) within the category of facilities for which the Department of Welfare was responsible. Pa.Stat.Ann. tit. 50, § 4102. Thus, we see in the MH/MR Act of 1966 exactly the intent ascribed to it by Senator Pechan when he spoke in support of the measure. 41 The object of the legislation is to make it possible for every mentally disabled person to receive the kind of treatment he needs, when and where he needs it. 42 1966 Pa.Legis.J. 3d Spec.Secc., No. 33, 76 (Sept. 27, 1966). The state statute ... was focused on individual needs. 43 612 F.2d at 114-15. This interpretation of the MH/MR Act of 1966 was fully confirmed by the Schmidt decision. That case involved a dispute between two governmental units over allocation of burdens among them, which in the particular instance of a single individual was resolved in favor of the County. The resolution in Schmidt resulted from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's conclusion that where long term institutional care is in fact the least restrictive means of habilitation, institutionalization is permissible and the state is obliged to provide it. Our prior holding that individual determinations must be made for each member of the class is entirely consistent with the holding that Joseph Schmidt must be provided a place in a state facility. 44 But unlike Schmidt, we have before us numerous class members who the court found should not be in Pennhurst. For these the court ordered that suitable community living arrangements be provided, and enjoined the county defendants from recommending future commitments to Pennhurst without an individual determination that a community living arrangement or other less restrictive environment would be suitable. 15 These holdings are also consistent with the Schmidt opinion, for while the opinion recognizes that under the MH/MR Act of 1966 the state was given responsibility for overall supervision and control of the statutory program, it expressly rejected Allegheny County's contention that the County had no obligation to provide merely ameliorative services until a state placement could be arranged. 429 A.2d at 635. The allocation, in the order appealed from, of responsibility among the county and state defendants based upon individualized determinations as to what is the least restrictive environment in which habilitation can take place, is completely congruent with the Schmidt court's interpretation of the MH/MR Act of 1966. 45 The defendants urge that because the Schmidt case did not present any issue of funding of proper care, it should not be regarded as controlling. (Appellants' Joint Brief on Remand, 54, citing 429 A.2d at 633.) Except that this is a class action, however, we are not persuaded that there is any essential difference in the posture of the Schmidt case and this. As in this case, the County attempted to limit its responsibility to petitioning for the commission of mentally retarded persons to a state residential facility. The Schmidt court made clear that the Pennsylvania law imposed the obligation on both levels of government to provide habilitation in that environment providing the least restriction on personal liberty consistent with habilitation. Insofar as financial burdens are concerned, it merely referred to Sections 508 and 509 of the MH/MR Act of 1966, which impose funding duties on both levels of government, and which provide mechanisms for the allocation of appropriated funds among the counties. 16 429 A.2d at 633. The Commonwealth was ordered to find a placement for Schmidt in an institution with a staff-patient ratio suitable to his needs. There is no suggestion in the Schmidt opinion that this order would be qualified by the necessity for appropriations. Obviously the Schmidt Court anticipated that the adjustment mechanisms of Sections 508 and 509 would be operated in good faith. Nothing in the record which is before us on this appeal suggests that those mechanisms will be dismantled, will be operated other than in good faith, or are inhibited by the provisions of the judgment. On this record we, like the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, must assume that the Pennsylvania legislature intends compliance with its statutes. Moreover, a Rule 60(b) motion would be the proper vehicle to present a showing that changed circumstances no longer require the use of a federal court master to administer a state program under state laws. 46 We conclude, therefore, that except as the order appealed from must be modified in accordance with our prior decision, the Pennsylvania MH/MR Act provides adequate support for it independent of federal law.