Opinion ID: 769703
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Granting a Remedy

Text: 66 As the Supreme Court long ago made clear in the school desegregation cases, although 67 the scope of a district court's equitable powers to remedy past wrongs is broad, for breadth and flexibility are inherent in equitable remedies . . . it is important to remember that judicial powers may be exercised only on the basis of a constitutional violation. Remedial judicial authority does not put judges automatically in the shoes of school authorities whose powers are plenary. Judicial authority enters only when local authority defaults . . . . As with any 9483 equity case, the nature of the violation determines the scope of the remedy. 68 Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Educ., 402 U.S. 1, 15-16 (1971) (emphasis added) (approving remedies necessary to effectuate desegregation). Thus where a court seeks to correct a constitutional violation established in the course of litigation, the court's exercise of equitable discretion must heel close to the identified violation and respect the interests of state and local authorities in managing their own affairs, consistent with the Constitution. Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U.S. 267, 281 (1977) (Milliken II) (upholding imposition of remedial education program to effectuate desegregation decree). As the Milliken II Court observed: 69 The well-settled principle that the nature and scope of the remedy are to be determined by the violation means that federal-court decrees must directly address and relate to the constitutional violation itself. Because of this inherent limitation upon federal judicial authority, federal-court decrees exceed appropriate limits if they are aimed at eliminating a condition that does not violate the Constitution or does not flow from such a violation, or if they are imposed upon governmental units that were neither involved in nor affected by the constitutional violation . . . . But where, as here, a constitutional violation has been found, the remedy does not exceed the violation if the remedy is tailored to cure the condition that offends the Constitution. 70 433 U.S. at 281-82 (emphasis added) (citations omitted) (quoting Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717, 738 (1974) (Milliken I); see also Rufo, 502 U.S. at 389 (Federal courts may not order States or local governments, over their objection, to undertake a course of conduct not tailored to curing a constitutional violation that has been adjudicated.) (citing Milliken II); Hutto, 437 U.S. 687-88 & n.9 (upholding remedy in prison conditions case necessary to bring an ongoing violation to an immediate halt). 71 On the other hand, continuing decrees entered by consent of the parties may, precisely because of their consensual nature, provide more than the constitutional minimum: 72 [W]e have no doubt that, to save themselves the time, expense, and inevitable risk of litigation, United States v. Armour & Co., 402 U.S. 673, 681 (1971), petitioners could settle the dispute over the proper remedy for the constitutional violationsthat had been properly found by undertaking to do more than the Constitution itself requires (almost any affirmative decree beyond a directive to obey the Constitution necessarily does that) but also more than what a court would have ordered absent the settlement. 73 Rufo, 502 U.S. at 389; see also Local Number 93, 478 U.S. at 525 ([T]he consent decree must come within the general scope of the case made by the pleadings, and must further the objectives of the law upon which the complaint was based. However, in addition to the law which forms the basis of the claim, the parties' consent animates the legal force of a consent decree. Therefore, a federal court is not necessarily barred from entering a decree merely because the decree provides broader relief than the court could have awarded after a trial.) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). 74 At least in the context of contested decrees, then, the general standard for granting prospective relief differs little from the standard set forth in S 3626(b)(2) for terminating prospective relief, or from the standard set forth in S 3626(b)(3) for preserving relief to correct a current and ongoing violation. The limits on federal court jurisdiction are essentially the same -no more than necessary to correct the underlying constitutional violation 23 . It is not immediately obvious, therefore, that prospective relief granted in a contested decree which predates the PLRA will flunk the statute's standard. District courts were already bound to follow a nearly identical standard. With respect to consent decrees, of course, any contractual surplusage (relief the court had jurisdiction to enforce only by virtue of the parties' consent) is rendered unenforceable by the termination provisions, 24 but all other relief is untouched by the statute. 75