Opinion ID: 410177
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Right to Reasonable Care

Text: 7 Scott also contends that the imposition on him of subhuman living conditions violated due process. The trial court concluded that there was sufficient evidence to submit Scott's damage claim to the jury on that theory. The court, consistent with Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979), charged that Scott could recover if the conditions in the Vroom Building were punitive in nature and had no reasonable relationship to the state's interests in keeping dangerous mental patients off the streets and in maintaining security. We approved that charge. 8 Romeo expressly acknowledged the continued authority of Bell v. Wolfish, 102 S.Ct. at 2460. The Court noted, however, that in balancing the state's interests against a confined persons's liberty interests the balance should not be left to the unbridled discretion of judge or jury. So long as judge or jury determines that the conditions imposed were not punitive in nature or purpose, reasonableness of nonpunitive conditions rests on whether the decision to subject the patient to such conditions was made by a professional competent in the relevant discipline. If so, liability (for money damages) may be imposed only when the decision by the professional is such a substantial departure from professional judgment as to demonstrate that the person responsible actually did not base the decision on such a judgment. 102 S.Ct. at 2462. In the record before us, there is evidence from which the jury could have found that Scott was confined in subhuman living conditions during most of the 24 years of his confinement and that such confinement resulted from inattention by the defendants to their normal professional responsibilities. Thus we cannot, in light of Youngberg v. Romeo, hold that submission of the subhuman conditions claim to the jury was error. The Supreme Court also suggests that no liability for money damages would attach if the departure from accepted professional standards was occasioned by budgetary constraints. Id. While there is some evidence in this record that the New Jersey Department of Institutions and Agencies was operating at the time under severe budgetary restraints, there is at least a jury question whether the conditions to which the evidence suggests Scott has been subjected were causally related to such constraints. We do not read Youngberg v. Romeo to lay down a rule that budgetary restraints having nothing to do with the specific conditions to which an inmate has been subjected will afford a defense to an action for money damages. A professional judgment with respect to a mental patient obviously must take that patient's individual situation into account. 9 We note, moreover, that several provisions in Title 30 of the New Jersey Revised Statutes suggest a state right to reasonable care. It is the public policy of the state to provide adequate residential facilities for the treatment of mental illness. N.J.Stat.Ann. 30:4-24. Each New Jersey mental patient has a right to privacy and dignity. N.J.Stat.Ann. 30:4-24.2(e)(1). These provisions, and the cases referred to in our discussion of the right to treatment under N.J.Stat.Ann. 30:4-24.1, indicate that the New Jersey courts would recognize a state law right to reasonable care as a necessary predicate to the other more explicit patient rights granted in Title 30. Thus what we have said about consideration on remand of the state statutory right to adequate treatment is equally applicable. We note, as well, the distinction we made earlier between claims for money damages and claims for prospective injunctive relief. That distinction is even more significant when the claim is that, entirely aside from concerns for treatment or security, a state government simply prefers not to spend enough money to provide other than subhuman living conditions for inmates of its institutions. 10