Court Opinion

ID: 9486920
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:04:13.297258+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:00.988828
License: Public Domain

*613SENTELLE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from the court’s conclusion that the McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, 42 U.S.C. § 11301 et seq. (1988), creates a federal right enforceable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. I do so recognizing that the question is a close one, though in my mind it should not be. That is, I agree with Justice Powell that the Supreme Court in Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U.S. 1, 100 S.Ct. 2502, 65 L.Ed.2d 555 (1980), by holding “almost casually, that 42 U.S.C. § 1983 creates a cause of action for deprivations ... of any federal statutory right” distorted the Civil Rights Act far beyond any support in its then already lengthy history. 448 U.S. at 11, 100 S.Ct. at 2508 (Powell, J., dissenting, for himself, Chief Justice Burger and then-Justice Rehnquist). That said, I of course recognize that it is not within our compass to pick and choose which Supreme Court opinions we follow. Nonetheless, in my view, the district court reached the proper result and I would affirm.
Although the Supreme Court has counseled us that in the post-Thiboutot framework of § 1983 interpretation “each statute must be interpreted by its own terms,” Suter v. Artist M., — U.S. -, - n. 8, 112 S.Ct. 1360, 1367 n. 8, 118 L.Ed.2d 1 (1992), obviously, the high court’s prior interpretations of other statutes instructs our interpretation of the present one. In Suter, as the majority points out today, the Supreme Court found no right enforceable under § 1983 in the Child Welfare Act. In Wilder v. Virginia Hospital Association, 496 U.S. 498, 110 S.Ct. 2510, 110 L.Ed.2d 455 (1990), the Supreme Court did find such a right in the Boren Amendment to the Medicaid Act. The majority opinion today does a commendable job of cataloging the similarities and differences between the two cases and I will not rehash them. I do not disagree with the majority’s summary of either case, only with its conclusion as to the side upon which the McKinney Act falls.
As the majority notes, the Suter decision was based at least in part upon the conclusion “that the [statutory] directive to use reasonable efforts was so open-ended, and the resulting state discretion so broad, that judicial enforcement was an impossibility.” Maj. op. at 609. That is to say, whatever other grounds may exist for denying judicial enforcement to statutorily-created federal “rights” under § 1983, the “judicial enforcement” of such rights “requires that they not be overly Vague and amorphous.’ ” Maj. op. at 612 (quoting Wilder, 496 U.S. at 519, 110 S.Ct. at 2522). Therefore, for us to undertake judicial enforcement of rights under the McKinney Act presupposes an ability by the federal courts to carry out for the recalcitrant state the duty of determining school assignments in the “best interests” of children and youths. To me this is no less vague and amorphous than the “reasonable efforts” language which the Supreme Court in Suter held insufficient to create such an enforceable right.
Certainly the majority is correct that in other circumstances courts must determine the “best interests” , of particular children. However, the usual exercise of judicial wisdom in pursuit of the “best interests” of a particular child is just that — a particularized one. Here, the courts would be called upon to make programmatic decisions not as to the best interest of a particular child, but as to how a grant-augmented state program should be designed to meet the needs of groups of particularized children. The programmatic operation of a state agency is not within the judicial competence.
Finally, it appears to me that the genuine statutory duty of a recipient state under the McKinney Act is to “prepare and carry out” a plan, “designed to” achieve nine designated goals. 42 U.S.C. §§ 11432(c)(4) & 11432(e)(1). Given the amorphousness of the “designed to” mandate, I do not see how this differs in a controlling way from the Adoption Act construed in Suter. There the Court held that statute did not create a right enforceable under § 1983 because it did not “placet ] any requirement for state receipt of federal funds other than the requirement that the State submit a plan to be approved by the Secretary.” Suter, — U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 1369. The mandating paragraphs of the McKinney Act listed by the majority do not change this. The Adoption Act also contained descriptions of the rele*614vant plan. Indeed, 42 U.S.C. § 671 provided a description of the required plan approximately as detailed, and with as many uses of mandatory words such as “shall” and “will,” as does the McKinney Act outlined in the majority opinion. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court held that the statute did not create a civil right enforceable under § 1983.
In my view, the district court in the present case properly deemed Enter rather than Wilder controlling. I would therefore affirm.