Opinion ID: 3134602
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Compulsory Education Law

Text: It is well established that the due process clause does not generally impose any affirmative obligation on the state to provide substantive services to its citizens. Youngberg v. Romeo , 457 U.S. 307, 317, 73 L. Ed. 2d 28, 38, 102 S. Ct. 2452, 2459 (1982); Archie v. City of Racine , 847 F.2d 1211 (7th Cir. 1988). This is true even if such services may be necessary to secure life, liberty or property interests. DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services , 489 U.S. 189, 196, 103 L. Ed. 2d 249, 259, 109 S. Ct. 998, 1003 (1989). Although the due process clause forbids the state itself from depriving individuals of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, its language does not impose an affirmative duty on the state to ensure that those interests are not harmed through other means. DeShaney , 489 U.S. at 195, 103 L. Ed. 2d at 259, 109 S. Ct. at 1003. As the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has noted, “[t]he Constitution is a charter of negative liberties; it tells the state to let people alone; it does not require the federal government or the state to provide services, even so elementary a service as maintaining law and order.” Bowers v. DeVito , 686 F.2d 616, 618 (7th Cir. 1982); see also Archie , 847 F.2d at 1220-23 (holding that state has no due process duty to provide rescue services to those in danger). The Supreme Court has determined, however, that “in certain limited circumstances the Constitution imposes upon the State affirmative duties of care and protection with respect to particular individuals.” DeShaney , 489 U.S. at 198, 103 L. Ed. 2d at 260, 109 S. Ct. at 1004. In Estelle v. Gamble , 429 U.S. 97, 50 L. Ed. 2d 251, 97 S. Ct. 285 (1976), the Court recognized that the eighth amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, made applicable to the states through the due process clause, required a state to provide medical care to incarcerated prisoners. The Estelle Court reasoned that because a prisoner, is “ ‘by reason of the deprivation of his liberty,’ ” unable to care for himself, it is “just” that the State be required to care for him. Estelle , 429 U.S. at 104, 50 L. Ed. 2d at 260, 97 S. Ct. at 291, quoting Spicer v. Williamson , 191 N.C. 487, 490, 132 S.E. 291, 293 (1926). The rationale of Estelle was extended beyond the eighth amendment setting in Youngberg v. Romeo , 457 U.S. 307, 73 L. Ed. 2d 28, 102 S. Ct. 2452 (1982). In Youngberg , the Supreme Court considered the substantive rights of involuntarily committed mentally retarded persons under the due process clause. After noting that, generally, a state is under no constitutional duty to provide substantive services to individuals, the Court found that “[w]hen a person is institutionalized – and wholly dependent on the State –  a duty to provide certain services and care does exist.” Youngberg , 457 U.S. at 317, 73 L. Ed. 2d at 38, 102 S. Ct. at 2459. The Court held that the due process clause obligated the state to provide involuntarily committed persons with such services as are necessary to ensure their safety and freedom from undue restraint. Youngberg , 457 U.S. at 319, 73 L. Ed. 2d at 39, 102 S. Ct. at 2460. The plaintiffs here seek to extend the rationale of Youngberg to apply to this case. The premise for the plaintiffs’ argument is that the Illinois compulsory education law, mandating that children of a certain age attend school (105 ILCS 5/26–1 (West 1996)), operates as a restriction on the plaintiffs’ liberty similar to the restriction on liberty present in Youngberg . It is clear, however, that compulsory education is not the type of restraint on liberty envisioned by the Supreme Court in Estelle and Youngberg as the basis for imposing an affirmative duty on the state. The language used by the Court in Youngberg demonstrates the distinction. There, the Court stated that a duty to provide certain services and care would be imposed on a state when a person is institutionalized and therefore “wholly dependent on the State.” Youngberg , 457 U.S. at 317, 73 L. Ed. 2d at 38, 102 S. Ct. at 2459. Moreover, the Supreme Court clarified the limited scope of the Youngberg holding in a subsequent case. In DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services , 489 U.S. 189, 103 L. Ed. 2d 249, 109 S. Ct. 998 (1989), the Court considered whether the state had violated a child’s substantive due process rights by failing to provide him with protection against his father’s violence. The evidence showed that the county and its department of social services had been made aware of numerous instances of suspected abuse of the child by his father, had investigated the instances, and had taken temporary custody of the child. The child was, however, returned to the custody of his father, who ultimately beat the child severely. The child, through his guardian, sued the governmental defendants claiming that their failure to protect him deprived him of his liberty in violation of the due process clause. The DeShaney Court reiterated the well-established principle that the due process clause is a limitation on the state’s power to act and does not confer any affirmative right to governmental aid. The plaintiff, however, argued that an affirmative duty to provide protective services on the part of the state may arise out of certain “special relationships” created or assumed by the state with respect to particular individuals, and that such a relationship existed in that case. The Court rejected this argument. In so doing, the Court explained the holdings of Estelle and Youngberg as follows: “Taken together, [these cases] stand only for the proposition that when the State takes a person into its custody and holds him there against his will, the Constitution imposes upon it a corresponding duty to assume some responsibility for his safety and general well- being. [Citation.] The rationale for this principle is simple enough: when the State by the affirmative exercise of its power so restrains an individual’s liberty that it renders him unable to care for himself, and at the same time fails to provide for his basic human needs–e.g., food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and reasonable safety–it transgresses the substantive limits on state action set by the Eighth Amendment and the Due Process Clause. [Citations.] The affirmative duty to protect arises not from the State’s knowledge of the individual’s predicament or from its expressions of intent to help him, but from the limitation which it has imposed on his freedom to act on his own behalf. [Citation.] In the substantive due process analysis, it is the State’s affirmative act of restraining the individual’s freedom to act on his own behalf–through incarceration, institutionalization, or other similar restraint or personal liberty–which is the ‘deprivation of liberty’ triggering the protections of the Due Process Clause, not its failure to act to protect his liberty interests against harms inflicted by other means.” DeShaney , 489 U.S. at 199-200, 103 L. Ed. 2d at 261-62, 109 S. Ct. at 1005-06. The plaintiffs attempt to equate the restraint on schoolchildren’s liberty imposed by compulsory education laws with the restraint on liberty discussed in Youngberg . It is apparent, however, that the Youngberg “custody” exception to the general rule that the due process clause imposes no affirmative obligation on a state to provide aid or services is not applicable to the facts of this case. As explained in DeShaney , a much different sort of restraint is required in order to trigger a duty on the part of the state to provide aid or services. The DeShaney Court specifically described the requisite restraint by the state as “incarceration, institutionalization, or other similar restraint .” (Emphasis added.) DeShaney , 489 U.S. at 200, 103 L. Ed. 2d at 262, 109 S. Ct. at 1006. Notably, in a subsequent case, although not directly addressing the issue, the Supreme Court stated that public schools do not have such a degree of control over children as to give rise to a “duty to protect” under DeShaney . Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton , 515 U.S. 646, 655, 132 L. Ed. 2d 564, 576, 115 S. Ct. 2386, 2392 (1995); see also Ingraham v. Wright , 430 U.S. 651, 669, 670, 51 L. Ed. 2d 711, 729, 729, 97 S. Ct. 1401, 1411, 1412 (1977) (holding that the eighth amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment did not apply to the paddling of schoolchildren and rejecting the argument that compulsory education laws placed students in a position similar to that of incarcerated prisoners. The Court explained that prisoners and schoolchildren stand in “wholly different circumstances,” and that,“[t]hough attendance may not always be voluntary, the public school remains an open institution”). Numerous decisions from the federal courts of appeals have directly addressed this issue and have concluded that compulsory education laws do not give rise to affirmative duties on the part of the state to provide the protections accorded institutionalized persons. See, e.g. , Dorothy J. v. Little Rock School District , 7 F.3d 729, 732 (8th Cir. 1993); Maldonado v. Josey , 975 F.2d 727, 732 (10th Cir. 1992); D.R. by L.R. v. Middle Bucks Area Vocational Technical School , 972 F.2d 1364, 1372 (3d Cir. 1992); J.O. v. Alton Community Unit School District 11 , 909 F.2d 267, 272 (7th Cir. 1990). The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals explained the qualitative difference between compulsory education laws and the types of restraints on liberty that trigger affirmative obligations on the part of the state: “We do not suggest that prisoners and mental patients are an exhaustive list of all persons to whom the state owes some affirmative duties, but the government, acting through local school administrations, has not rendered its schoolchildren so helpless that an affirmative constitutional duty to protect arises. Whatever duty of protection does arise is best left to laws outside the Constitution . [Citation.] The state’s custody over their person is the most distinguishing characteristic in the cases of the mental patient and the prisoner; these people are unable to provide for basic human needs like food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and reasonable safety. [Citation.] At most, the state might require a child to attend school, [citation], but it cannot be suggested that compulsory school attendance makes a child unable to care for basic human needs.” J.O. , 909 F.2d at 272. The plaintiffs attempt to distinguish this consistent line of authority by asserting that those cases were concerned merely with whether compulsory education laws established a custodial situation which gave rise to a “duty to protect” schoolchildren. The plaintiffs argue that, here, they are not asserting a duty to protect, but a duty to provide a “minimally adequate education.” The plaintiffs contend that, in this case, the only question is whether compulsory attendance laws infringe on students’ liberty “in some significant manner.” The plaintiffs’ argument is not persuasive. As noted earlier, the due process clause does not generally impose any affirmative duty on the state to provide aid or services. In Youngberg , the Supreme Court recognized a limited exception to this general rule where an individual is in the custody of the state. The plaintiffs rely on this exception to avoid the general rule. This exception, as stated in Youngberg and clarified in DeShaney , requires a more significant restraint on an individual’s liberty than that imposed by compulsory education laws. DeShaney , although addressing whether a duty to protect is imposed on the state, nonetheless clarifies the type of restraint on liberty which is necessary under Youngberg . Accordingly, DeShaney , and the courts of appeal decisions interpreting it in the school context, are relevant here. The plaintiffs nonetheless assert that Youngberg supports their claim in this case because the Court there held that when the state takes custody of an individual, due process requires some rational relationship between the nature and duration of the commitment and its purpose. The plaintiffs contend that, because the state deprives children of their liberty by compelling school attendance, under this proposition, the state owes them a duty to provide a certain standard of education. First, we note that Youngberg did not actually assert this holding. Rather, the plaintiffs glean this proposition from a footnote in Youngberg which discussed a procedural due process case. Youngberg , 457 U.S. at 320 n.27, 73 L. Ed. 2d at 40 n.27, 102 S. Ct. at 2460 n.27, citing Jackson v. Indiana , 406 U.S. 715, 32 L. Ed. 2d 435, 92 S. Ct. 1845 (1972). Further, as discussed above, the type of restraint on liberty contemplated in Youngberg is not present in the school context. Thus, Youngberg does not support the theory that due process requires a certain standard of education be provided where school attendance is mandated by state law. The other case cited by the plaintiffs for this proposition, Woe v. Cuomo , 729 F.2d 96 (2d Cir. 1984), illustrates this point. Woe held that the “ ‘massive curtailment of liberty’ associated with involuntary commitment, [citation], dictates that the ‘nature and duration of commitment bear some reasonable relation to the purpose for which the individual is committed.’ ” Woe , 729 F.2d at 105, quoting Jackson v. Indiana , 406 U.S. 715, 738, 32 L. Ed. 2d 435, 451, 92 S. Ct. 1845, 1858 (1972). It is important to note that the plaintiffs are not here seeking to invalidate the Illinois compulsory attendance law on the ground that it is an unreasonable restraint on their liberty. Rather, they are seeking to use the due process clause to impose on the defendants an affirmative duty to provide a certain standard of education. Because the clause does not generally impose such affirmative duties, the plaintiffs must establish a basis for creating that duty. The plaintiffs have attempted to use Youngberg to create that duty. For the reasons discussed above, Youngberg does not apply. In essence, the plaintiffs are attempting to create a federal constitutional right to a particular standard of education based solely on the fact that school attendance is compulsory in this state. The Supreme Court has cautioned that it is “reluctant to expand the concept of substantive due process because guideposts for responsible decisionmaking in this unchartered area are scarce and open-ended.” Collins v. Harker Heights , 503 U.S. 115, 125, 117 L. Ed. 2d 261, 273, 112 S. Ct. 1061, 1068 (1992). We do not agree that the due process clause should be expanded in the manner requested by the plaintiffs here. Accordingly, we hold that the Youngberg “custody” exception to the general rule that substantive due process does not impose an affirmative duty on the state to provide services is not applicable here.