Opinion ID: 217428
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Action Items as the Sole Measure of Substantial Compliance.

Text: The Plaintiffs strongly object to the district court's resort to only the Action Items in determining whether there had been substantial compliance with the consent decrees that justified their vacatur. In its Findings and Conclusions leading to the order vacating the consent decrees, the district court confined its rulings to the Action Items and said nothing of the overall objectives of the decrees. We agree with the Plaintiffs that the Action Items, while clearly relevant, are not the only matters to be considered in determining whether the consent decrees have served their purpose. The status of compliance in light of the governing standards require overall attention to whether the larger purposes of the decrees have been served. Indeed, this requirement is inherent in the very nature of substantial compliance. [T]he touchstone of the substantial compliance inquiry is whether Defendants frustrated the purpose of the consent decreei.e., its essential requirements. Joseph A., 69 F.3d at 1086. Thus, there can be no `substantial performance' where the part unperformed touches the fundamental purpose of the contract and defeats the object of the parties entering into the contract. Ujdur, 878 P.2d at 183. Even if the doctrine of substantial performance had not been employed, it would have been necessary for the district court to focus on whether there has been full and satisfactory compliance with the decree . . . and whether the [defendant] has demonstrated . . . its good-faith commitment to the whole of the court's decree and to those provisions of law and the Constitution that were the predicate for judicial intervention in the first instance. Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U.S. 467, 491, 112 S.Ct. 1430, 118 L.Ed.2d 108 (1992). A court considering termination of a consent decree in light of performance of its specific terms must also consider the more general goals of the decree which the terms were designed to accomplish. Youngblood v. Dalzell, 925 F.2d 954, 960 (6th Cir.1991). A court faced with a motion to terminate . . . a consent decree must begin by determining the basic purposes of the decree. United States v. City of Miami, 2 F.3d 1497, 1505 (11th Cir.1993). Here, the decrees themselves set out their basic purposes, see, e.g., Jeff D. III, 899 F.2d at 760, and these purposes are also reflected in the recommendations of the independent Needs Assessment that found their way into the Implementation Plan. For example, the single goal receiving the most emphasis in those documents was the need for more emphasis on community-based care and less on institutional care. See Jeff D. IV, 365 F.3d at 848. Whether sufficient progress has been made in that direction is certainly one of the factors to be considered in determining whether the consent decrees should be vacated. The resolution of the disputed question whether the Defendants have lived up to their obligations to request adequate funding and to redirect their existing funding to increase community-based services will clearly bear on this determination. Another factor to be considered is the Defendants' record of compliance, Freeman, 503 U.S. at 491, 112 S.Ct. 1430, which over course of the litigation has been far from exemplary. See Jeff D. IV, 365 F.3d at 847 (The history of this case is a sad record of promises made and broken over two decades.). It is true, as the Defendants argue, that the district court clearly announced its intention to reach a final compliance determination that would permit the decrees to be vacated, and it focused the efforts of the parties toward resolving the disputed issues over the Action Items. But the Plaintiffs made known their view that the decrees and the Implementation Plan's recommendations must be taken into account in determining whether the purposes of the consent decrees had been substantially served. The Defendants argue that the Implementation Plan is too vague to consider in determining compliance, and its terms reflected that it was a work in progress that stated Desired Results rather than measurable goals. It is true that the decrees' statement of purposes and the Implementation Plan's recommendations are often too vague to serve as a foundation for a contempt sanction. That does not mean, however, that the district court can avoid considering them in its final determination whether the purposes of the decrees, and the Implementation Plan, had been adequately served. It may be that compliance with Action Items was all that was required for certain of the overall purposes of the decrees or the Implementation Plan, but that finding or conclusion has not been made. Before the consent decrees may be vacated, there must be careful attention to their purposes, along with consideration of the Action Items. If the purposes of the consent decrees and the Implementation Plan have not been adequately served, the decrees may not be vacated. It is true that the district court recited the standard for vacating consent decrees set forth in Rufo, 502 U.S. at 393, 112 S.Ct. 748, and Jeff D. IV, 365 F.3d at 851, and opined that the defendants have fulfilled their burden under Rufo, having made significant efforts to substantially comply with their promises. But the context of the district court's statement was clearly confined by the contempt-based findings of compliance with the Action Items. The fruit of the significant efforts found by the district court was compliance with the Action Items alone. Explicit consideration of the goals of the decrees and Implementation Plan, and whether those goals have been adequately served, must be part of the determination to vacate the consent decrees. Because that consideration was lacking and because, as we have already discussed, the contempt standard and burden of proof was used in determining to vacate the decrees, we reverse the order vacating the decrees.