Opinion ID: 4119202
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Private Right

Text: Title 42 U.S.C. § 1983 imposes liability on anyone who, acting under color of state law, deprives a person “of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws.” This section authorizes suits to enforce individual rights under federal statutes as well as the Constitution. Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U.S. 1, 4 (1980). Nonetheless, “§ 1983 does not provide an avenue for relief every time a state actor violates a federal law.” City of Rancho Palos Verdes v. Abrams, 544 U.S. 113, 119 (2005). Rather, “to sustain a § 1983 action, the plaintiff must demonstrate that the federal statute creates an individually enforceable right in the class of beneficiaries to which he belongs.” Id. at 120 (citing Gonzaga Univ. v. Doe, 536 U.S. 273, 285 (2002)). For this court to find an individually enforceable right: 1) “Congress must have intended that the provision in question benefit the plaintiff”; 2) the asserted right must not be “so vague and amorphous that its enforcement would strain judicial competence”; and 3) “the statute must unambiguously impose a binding obligation on the States.” Blessing v. Freestone, 520 U.S. 329, 340–41 (1997) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). To illustrate, in Harris v. Olszewski, 442 F.3d 456 (6th Cir. 2006), we evaluated whether Medicaid’s freedom-of-choice provision established enforceable rights. The provision reads: No. 16-5461 D.O., et al. v. Glisson Page 5 “A State plan for medical assistance must . . . provide that [] any individual eligible for medical assistance (including drugs) may obtain such assistance from any institution, agency, community pharmacy, or person, qualified to perform the service or services required.” 42 U.S.C. § 1396a(a)(23). We held that the provision granted Medicaid-recipients an individually enforceable right to choose their medical provider, reasoning that the phrase “any individual eligible for medical assistance” evinced “the kind of individually focused terminology that unambiguously confers an individual entitlement under the law.” Harris, 442 F.3d at 461 (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). We noted that “the mandate [] does not contain the kind of vagueness that would push the limits of judicial enforcement.” Id. at 462. And we explained that “the ‘must . . . provide’ language of the provision confirms that the statute is ‘couched in mandatory, rather than precatory, terms.’” Id. (omission in original) (quoting Blessing, 520 U.S. at 341); see also Barry v. Lyon, 834 F.3d 706, 717 (6th Cir. 2016) (holding that the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—mandating that “[a]ssistance under this program shall be furnished to all eligible households,” 7 U.S.C. § 2014(a)—created a privately enforceable statutory right). By contrast, in Gonzaga University the Supreme Court held that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”) failed to grant students a privacy right in their education records. 536 U.S. at 290. The relevant statutory section provided: No funds shall be made available under any applicable program to any educational agency or institution which has a policy or practice of permitting the release of education records (or personally identifiable information contained therein . . .) of students without the written consent of their parents to any individual, agency, or organization. Id. at 279 (omission in original) (quoting 20 U.S.C. § 1232g(b)(1)). The Court reasoned in part that FERPA lacked “the sort of ‘rights-creating’ language critical to showing the requisite congressional intent to create new rights.” Id. at 287 (citing Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U.S. 275, 288–89 (2001), and Cannon v. Univ. of Chi., 441 U.S. 677, 690 n.13 (1979)). In particular, “FERPA’s provisions speak only to the Secretary of Education, directing that ‘no funds shall be made available’ to any ‘educational agency or institution’ which has a prohibited ‘policy or practice.’” Id. (quoting 20 U.S.C. § 1232g(b)(1)). The nondisclosure provisions evinced an No. 16-5461 D.O., et al. v. Glisson Page 6 “aggregate focus” that “speak only in terms of institutional policy and practice, not individual instances of disclosure,” and “are not concerned with ‘whether the needs of any particular person have been satisfied.’” Id. at 288 (quoting Blessing, 520 U.S. at 343–44). Applied here, we conclude the Act confers upon foster parents an individually enforceable right to foster care maintenance payments. First, the Act mandates payments “on behalf of each child.” 42 U.S.C. § 672(a)(1). This focus on individual recipients is similar to language creating private rights in Harris and Barry. Unlike Gonzaga, the Act requires individual payments and focuses on the needs of specific children, as opposed to merely speaking to the state’s policy or practice. Second, the Act confers a monetary entitlement upon qualified foster families and includes an itemized list of expenses that the state must cover. 42 U.S.C. § 675(4)(A). It therefore lacks vague and amorphous terms that might strain judicial competence. Finally, § 672(a)(1)’s “shall make” language “unambiguously impose[s] a binding obligation on the States.” Blessing, 520 U.S. at 341. Kentucky makes several arguments to the contrary, though none are persuasive. It first argues that § 672(a) simply sets out the preconditions that a state must satisfy to receive federal reimbursement. In support, it points to a different statutory section, § 674(a)(1), which provides that “each State which has a plan approved under this part shall be entitled to a payment equal to the sum of” an “amount equal to the Federal medical assistance percentage . . . of the total amount expended during such quarter as foster care maintenance payments under section 672 of this title for children in foster family homes or child-care institutions.” 42 U.S.C. § 674(a)(1). Based on this section, Kentucky invokes the Eighth Circuit’s reasoning that the “function of § 672(a) is to serve as a roadmap for the conditions a state must fulfill in order for its expenditure to be eligible for federal matching funds; otherwise, the state bears the full cost of these payments.” Midwest Foster Care & Adoption Ass’n v. Kincade, 712 F.3d 1190, 1198 (8th Cir. 2013) (citing § 674(a)(1)). We disagree. If § 672(a) simply provides a roadmap that states may choose to follow to receive matching funds, then Congress would not have phrased the section in mandatory terms. Indeed, once the Secretary approves the state’s plan, the state “shall make foster care maintenance payments.” 42 U.S.C. § 672(a)(1) (emphasis added). It isn’t optional. No. 16-5461 D.O., et al. v. Glisson Page 7 And although a separate section of the Act requires the federal government to partially reimburse these costs, nothing in § 672(a) mentions funding. Kentucky next contends that the Act “‘do[es] not speak directly to the interests’ of foster parents; rather, [it] ‘speak[s] to the states as regulated participants in the [Act].’” Appellee Br. 36 (quoting Midwest Foster Care, 712 F.3d at 1197). Kentucky suggests that when Congress writes in the active voice, making the state the subject, its focus is on the state as the regulated entity, and courts should not infer a private right to whatever benefit the state is supposed to provide. Thus, because Congress wrote in the active voice—“[e]ach State with a plan approved under this part shall make foster care maintenance payments on behalf of each child,” 42 U.S.C. § 672(a)—Kentucky argues the law does not create a private right. Cf. New York State Citizens’ Coal. for Children v. Carrion, 31 F. Supp. 3d 512, 521 (E.D.N.Y. 2014) (“If the statute were worded differently, and § 672(a)(1) read: ‘No eligible child shall be denied foster care maintenance payments by a State with an approved plan,’ a reasonable reader might find the requisite ‘rights-creating’ language.”). Both the Supreme Court and the Sixth Circuit, however, have found that laws phrased in the active voice, with the state as the subject, confer individually enforceable rights. See Wilder v. Va. Hosp. Ass’n, 496 U.S. 498, 502–03, 509–10 (1990), superseded on other grounds by statute; Harris, 442 F.3d at 461–62. This should not be surprising: Congress must not only use rights-creating language, but also “unambiguously impose a binding obligation on the States.” Blessing, 520 U.S. at 341. When Congress names the state as the subject, writes in the active voice, and uses mandatory language, it leaves no doubt about the actor’s identity or what the law requires. Last, Kentucky argues that because the Act “does not dictate the amounts that States must pay to foster parents,” it is not “sufficiently specific and definite to qualify as enforceable under § 1983.” But the Supreme Court in Wilder recognized a private right to a monetary benefit even though the law granted states discretion to set the applicable rate.1 “That the [statute] gives the 1 The relevant provision of the Medicaid Act mandates that “a State plan for medical assistance must provide for payment of the hospital services . . . through the use of rates . . . which the State finds . . . are reasonable and adequate.” Wilder, 496 U.S. at 502–03 (internal alterations and citation omitted). No. 16-5461 D.O., et al. v. Glisson Page 8 States substantial discretion in choosing among reasonable methods of calculating rates may affect the standard under which a court reviews whether the rates comply with the [statute], but it does not render the [statute] unenforceable by a court.” Wilder, 496 U.S. at 519. And as the Ninth Circuit explained when evaluating this provision, “[i]f a statute or applicable federal requirement does not prescribe a particular methodology for calculating costs, we give deference to a reasonable methodology employed by the State.” Cal. State Foster Parent Ass’n v. Wagner, 624 F.3d 974, 981 (9th Cir. 2010). Here, it is undisputed that Kentucky established foster care maintenance payment rates. And neither party contends that Kentucky’s rate-setting methodology is unreasonable. Accordingly, § 672(a) confers an individually enforceable right to foster care maintenance payments.