Opinion ID: 799337
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: CWA: Records Provisions (Count Three)

Text: Count Three is a claim for injunctive relief and damages on behalf of the individual plaintiffs. It seeks to enforce the requirement that a State provide updated health and education records to foster parents as part of a case review system. These provisions are codified at 42 U.S.C. §§ 671(a)(16), 675(1), and 675(5)(D). As it does with respect to a case plan, § 671(a)(16) requires a State to provide for a case review system for each child. Section 675(5)(D) defines case review system to include a procedure for assuring that ... a child's health and education record ... is reviewed and updated, and a copy of the record is supplied to the foster parent or foster care provider with whom the child is placed, at the time of each placement of the child in foster care. Section 675(1)(C) outlines the detailed information that must be included in a child's health and education record. The district court analyzed the records provisions of the CWA along with the case plan provisions and concluded that the records provisions were also not enforceable. The district court adopted the reasoning of the Eleventh Circuit in 31 Foster Children v. Bush, which held that the language describing a case review system as a procedure for assuring that a foster child has accurate health and education records gives the provision an aggregate or system wide focus instead of one that indicates concern with whether the needs of any particular child are met. 329 F.3d 1255, 1272 (11th Cir.2003). We disagree with this analysis and instead join the federal courts that have found the records provisions of the CWA to be privately enforceable along with the case plan provisions. See, e.g., Lynch, 719 F.2d at 512; Kenny A., 218 F.R.D. at 291-92; Brian A., 149 F.Supp.2d at 946-49. We are persuaded by the statute's repeated focus on the individuals benefitted by §§ 671(a)(16) and 675(5)(D): A case review system must be provided with respect to each child; the child's health and education record must be provided to the foster parent; and this must happen at the time the child is placed in foster care. As in Wagner, the focus on individual foster children, and the language designating foster parents to receive a benefit on their foster child's behalf, together unambiguously reflect Congress's intent that the records provisions benefit individual foster children and parents. 624 F.3d at 981. Furthermore, like the case plan provisions, the records provisions are couched in mandatory terms and contain detailed, concrete requirements that are capable of judicial enforcement. [10] To conclude otherwise would be inconsistent with our decisions in ASW and Wagner, as well as our analysis of the case plan provisions above. Defendants argue that the district court's decision is supported by a footnote in ASW, which distinguished 31 Foster Children by noting that unlike § 673(3), the provision at issue in ASW, the statutory text of § 675(5) alone does not mention a right ... to have medical and education backgrounds provided to caregivers[.] 424 F.3d at 977 n. 12. We agree with Plaintiffs, however, that this footnote has little significance because ASW did not consider § 675(5) in the context of related provisions such as § 671(a)(16) and § 622(b)(8)(A)(ii). We conclude that, like the case plan provisions, the records provisions can be enforced through § 1983, and we reverse the district court's dismissal of Count Three.