Opinion ID: 2079336
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Habilitation for Adults

Text: We next decide whether State law grants adult residents at Hunterdon individual rights to treatment, education and training. It is undisputed that State statutes require the Department of Human Services to provide treatment, education, training, rehabilitation, care and protection to Hunterdon residents. N.J.S.A. 30:4-165.1, -165.2(2). However, defendants argue that state law merely obligates them to make these services available at the facility without imposing a duty on them to provide each individual resident with these services. The Developmentally Disabled Rights Act, L. 1977, c. 82, N.J.S.A. 30:6D-1 to -12, provides that the mentally retarded residents at any facility have the same fundamental rights that all other citizens possess and that those rights shall not be abrogated solely because they have been admitted to any facility. N.J.S.A. 30:6D-2. These rights include the right not to be starved, N.J.S.A. 30:6D-5(b), or beaten, N.J.S.A. 30:6D-5(a)(1); and the right to be free from unnecessary restraint of personal liberty, N.J.S.A. 30:6D-5(a)(2), -5(a)(3), or unnecessary or inappropriate medical treatment, N.J.S.A. 30:6D-5(a)(3), -5(a)(4). The act also mandates that mentally retarded residents at any facility be provided with specialized services to which non-handicapped citizens have no legal entitlement. N.J.S.A. 30:6D-2, -3(b). These services are intended to alleviate the residents' disabilities and promote their social, personal, physical and economic habilitation. N.J.S.A. 30:6D-3(b), -9. Defendants contend that the Legislature did not intend to grant individual residents the legal right to these specialized services. We cannot agree. Facilities housing developmentally disabled persons are legally required to provide comprehensive evaluation, functional and guardianship services, as hereafter designated, in order that eligible mentally retarded persons may be provided with adequate training, care and protection. [ N.J.S.A. 30:4-165.1] The statute defines residential functional services as including but not limited to evaluation[,] study, treatment, training, rehabilitation, care and protection ... N.J.S.A. 30:4-165.2(2). Can it be that the Legislature intended to require each facility to provide these services but did not require them to be provided to every resident? We think not. The plain language of the various statutes supports this result. N.J.S.A. 30:4-25.7 mandates that the educational services required for mentally retarded residents of any facility shall [be] provide[d] ... for ... any such person in accordance with such person's individual requirements, as determined by competent professional personnel. [emphasis added] The Legislature has declared that services which are offered to the developmentally disabled shall be provided in a manner which respects the dignity, individuality and constitutional, civil and legal rights of each developmentally disabled person. . . N.J.S.A. 30:6D-2. [emphasis added] Finally, the Legislature has ordered that individualized habilitation plans be developed and placed into effect for each person  at the facility. N.J.S.A. 30:6D-10, -11. [emphasis added] We conclude that the Legislature did not merely intend these services to be generally available at the facility. The import of these statutes is clear. Hunterdon does not have the freedom to choose which of its residents will receive services and which will not. Every individual at Hunterdon is entitled to these special services not only because it is morally right and just, although it is both those things. They are entitled to them because it is the law. We have previously recognized the Legislature's strong moral and legal commitment to care for the handicapped. Levine v. Department of Institutions and Agencies of New Jersey, 84 N.J. 234, 249 (1980). It has not only enacted a bill of rights for the developmentally disabled, N.J.S.A. 30:6D-1 to -12, but has vigorously sought to improve the services offered to the mentally handicapped. The record in this case demonstrates that the Departments of Education and Human Services are sincerely attempting to carry out their statutory mandates. State services for residents at Hunterdon have improved dramatically in recent years. Indications are that they will continue to improve. The State deserves great credit for its diligent efforts. In the absence of a present factual context, we decline to specify the precise amount and nature of the services to which each resident is entitled by the statutes. The broad standards for providing those services are contained in N.J.S.A. 30:6D-9. That section provides: Every service for persons with developmental disabilities offered by any facility shall be designed to maximize the developmental potential of such persons and shall be provided in a humane manner in accordance with generally accepted standards for the delivery of such service and with full recognition and respect for the dignity, individuality and constitutional, civil and legal rights of each person receiving such service, and in a setting and manner which is least restrictive of each person's personal liberty. [ N.J.S.A. 30:6D-9] Each resident has the legal right to habilitation in accord with his or her individual requirements as determined by competent professional personnel. N.J.S.A. 30:4-25.7. Those services shall be designed in accord with generally accepted professional standards for the delivery of those services. Most important, the services provided each individual resident shall be designed to maximize his or her developmental potential. N.J.S.A. 30:6D-9. To summarize, we hold that each Hunterdon resident has the individual right to treatment, education, training, habilitation, care and protection. We further conclude that N.J.S.A. 30:6D-7 entitles each individual to enforce the right to services elaborated in the statute in an appropriate civil action.