Court Opinion

ID: 9426849
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:05.752423+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:03.456451
License: Public Domain

Me. Justice Stewaet,
with whom The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Rehnquist join, concurring in the judgment.
The foster parent-foster child relationship involved in this litigation is, of course, wholly a creation of the State. New York law defines the circumstances under which a child may be placed in foster care, prescribes the obligations of the foster parents, and provides for the removal of the child from the foster home “in [the] discretion” of the agency with custody of the child. N. Y. Soc. Serv. Law § 383 (2) (McKinney 1976). The agency compensates the foster parents, and reserves in its contracts the authority to decide as it sees fit whether and when a child shall be returned to his natural family or placed elsewhere. See Part I-A of the Court’s opinion, ante, at 823-828. Were it not for the system of foster care that the State maintains, the relationship for which-constitutional protection is asserted would not even exist.
The New York Legislature and the New York courts have made it unmistakably clear that foster care is intended only as a temporary way station until a child can be returned to his natural parents or placed for adoption. Thus, Soc. Serv. Law § 384-b (1) (b) (McKinney Supp. 1976-1977) states a legislative finding that “many children who have been placed in foster care experience unnecessarily protracted stays in such care without being adopted or returned to their parents or other custodians. Such unnecessary stays may deprive these children of positive, nurturing family relationships and have deleterious effects on their development into responsible, pro*857ductive citizens.” And, specifically repudiating the contention that New York law contemplates that a child will have a “secure, stable and continuous” relationship with a third-party custodian as the child’s “psychological parent,” the New York Court of Appeals has “[particularly rejected the notion, if that it be, that third-party custodians may acquire some sort of squatter’s rights in another’s child.” Bennett v. Jeffreys, 40 N. Y. 2d 543, 552 n. 2, 356 N. E. 2d 277, 285 n. 2.
In these circumstances, I cannot understand why the Court thinks itself obliged to decide these cases on the assumption that either foster parents or foster children in New York have some sort of “liberty” interest in the continuation of their relationship.1 Rather than tiptoeing around this cen*858tral issue, I would squarely hold that the interests asserted by the appellees are not of a kind that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects.
At the outset, I would reject, as does the Court, the apparent holding of the District Court that “the trauma of separation from a familiar environment” or the “harmful consequences of a precipitous and perhaps improvident decision to remove a child from his foster family,” Organization of Foster Families v. Dumpson, 418 F. Supp. 277, 283, constitutes a “grievous loss” which therefore is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Not every loss, however “grievous,” invokes the protection of the Due Process Clause. Its protections extend only to a deprivation by a State of “life, liberty, or property.” And when a state law does operate to deprive a person of his liberty or property, the Due Process Clause is applicable even though the deprivation may not be “grievous.” Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565, 576. “[T]o determine whether due process requirements apply in the first place, we look not to the 'weight’ but to the nature of the interest at stake.” Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564, 570-571. See Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U. S. 651, 672; Meachum v. Fano, 427 U. S. 215, 224; Goss v. Lopez, supra, at 575-576.
*859Clearly, New York has deprived nobody of his life in these cases. It seems to me just as clear that the State has deprived nobody of his liberty or property. Putting to one side the District Court’s erroneous “grievous loss” analysis, the appellees are left with very little ground on which to stand. Their argument seems to be that New York, by providing foster children with the opportunity to live in a foster home and to form a close relationship with foster parents, has created “liberty” or “property” that it may not withdraw without complying with the procedural safeguards that the Due Process Clause confers. But this Court’s decision in Meachum v. Fano, supra, illustrates the fallacy of that argument.
At issue in Meachum was a claim by Massachusetts state prisoners that they could not constitutionally be transferred to another institution with less favorable living conditions without a prior hearing that would fully probe the reasons for their transfer. In accord with previous cases, see, e. g., Goss v. Lopez, supra; Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539; Board of Regents v. Roth, supra; Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U. S. 593; Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S. 254, the Court recognized that where state law confers a liberty or property interest, the Due Process Clause requires certain minimum procedures “ 'to ensure that the state-created right is not arbitrarily abrogated.’ ” 427 U. S., at 226, quoting Wolff, supra, at 557. But the predicate for invoking the Due Process Clause— the existence of state-created liberty or property — was missing in Meachum just as it is missing here. New York confers no right on foster families to remain intact, defeasible only upon proof of specific acts or circumstances. As was true of prison transfers in Meachum, transfers in and out of foster families “are made for a variety of reasons and often involve no more than informed predictions as to what would best serve . . . the safety and welfare of the [child].” 427 U. S., at 225.
*860Similarly, New York law provides no basis for a justifiable expectation on the part of foster families that their relationship will continue indefinitely. Cf. Perry v. Sindermann, supra, at 599-603. The District Court in this litigation recognized as much, noting that the typical foster-care contract gives the agency the right to recall the child “upon request,” and commenting that the discretionary authority vested in the agency “is on its face incompatible with plaintiffs’ claim of legal entitlement.” 418 F. Supp., at 281. To be sure, the New York system has not operated perfectly. As the state legislature found, foster care has in many cases been unnecessarily protracted, no doubt sometimes resulting in the expectation on the part of some foster families that their relationship will continue indefinitely. But, as already noted, the New York Court of Appeals has unequivocally rejected the notion that under New York law prolonged third-party custody of children creates some sort of “squatter’s rights.” And, as this Court stated in Perry v. Sindermann, supra, at 603, a mere subjective “expectancy” is not liberty or property protected by the Due Process Clause.
This is not to say that under the law of New York foster children are the pawns of the State, who may be whisked from family to family at the whim of state officials. The Court discusses in Part III of its opinion the various state and local procedures intended to assure that agency discretion is exercised in a manner consistent with the child’s best interests. Unlike the prison transfer situation in Meachum v. Fano, it does not appear that child custody decisions can be made “for whatever reason or for no reason at all.” 427 U. S., at 228. But the protection that foster children have is simply the requirement of state law that decisions about their placement be determined in the light of their best interests. See, e. g., Bennett v. Jeffreys, 40 N. Y. 2d 543, 356 N. E. 2d 277; In re Jewish Child Care Assn. (Sanders), 5 N. Y. 2d 222, 156 N. E. 2d 700; State ex rel. Wallace v. Lhotan, *86151 App. Div. 2d 252, 380 N. Y. S. 2d 250, appeal dismissed and leave to appeal denied, 39 N. Y. 2d 705. This requirement is not “liberty or property” protected by the Due Process Clause, and it confers no right or expectancy of any kind in the continuity of the relationship between foster parents and children. See, e. g., Bennett, supra, at 552 n. 2, 356 N. E. 2d, at 285 n. 2: “Third-party custodians acquire ‘rights’ . . . only derivatively by virtue of the child’s best interests being considered . . . .”
What remains of the appellees’ argument is the theory that the relation of the foster parent to the foster child may generate emotional attachments similar to those found in natural families. The Court surmises that foster families who share these attachments might enjoy the same constitutional interest in “family privacy” as natural families. See, e. g., Moore v. East Cleveland, ante, at 504—505 (plurality opinion of Powell, J.); Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, 152-153; Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510; Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390.
On this score, the Court hypothesizes the case of “a child [who] has been placed in foster care as an infant, has never known his natural parents, and has remained continuously for several years in the care of the same foster parents . . . .” Ante, at 844. The foster family might then “hold the same place in the emotional life of the foster child, and fulfill the same socializing functions, as a natural family.” Ibid.
But under New York’s foster-care laws, any case where the foster parents had assumed the emotional role of the child’s natural parents would represent not a triumph of the system, to be constitutionally safeguarded from state intrusion, but a failure. The goal of foster care, at least in New York, is not to provide a permanent substitute for the natural or adoptive home, but to prepare the child for his return to his real parents or placement in a permanent adoptive home *862by giving him temporary shelter in a -family setting. See Part I-A of the Court’s opinion, ante, at 823-828. Thus, the New York Court of Appeals has recognized that the development of close emotional ties between foster parents and a child may hinder the child’s ultimate adjustment in a permanent home, and provide a basis for the termination of the foster family relationship. In re Jewish Child Care Assn.(Sanders), supra.2 See also State ex rel. Wallace v. Lhotan, supra. Perhaps it is to be expected that children who spend unduly long stays in what should have been temporary foster care will develop strong emotional ties with their foster parents. But this does not mean, and I cannot believe, that such breakdowns of the New York system must be protected or forever frozen in their existence by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.3
One of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause, the Court has held, is the freedom to- “establish a home and bring up children.” Meyer v. Nebraska, supra, at 399. If a State were to attempt to force the breakup of a natural family, *863over the objections of the parents and their children, without some showing of unfitness and for the sole reason that to do so was thought to be in the children’s best interest, I should have little doubt that the State would have intruded impermissibly on “the private realm of family life which the state cannot enter.” Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158, 166. But this constitutional concept is simply not in point when we deal with foster families as New York law has defined them. The family life upon which the State “intrudes” is simply a temporary status which the State itself has created. It is a “family life” defined and controlled by the law of New York, for which New York pays, and the goals of which New York is entitled to and does set for itself.
For these reasons I concur in the judgment of the Court.

 The Court’s opinion seems to indicate that there is no reason to distinguish between the claims of the foster parents and the foster children, either because the parents have standing to assert the rights of the children or because the parents’ interest is identical to that of the children. See ante, at 841-842, nn. 44, 45. I cannot agree.
First, it is by no means obvious that foster parents and foster children have the same interest in a continuation of their relationship. When the child leaves the foster family, it is because the agency with custody of him has determined that his interests will be better served by a new home, either with his natural parents, adoptive parents, or a different foster family. Any assessment of the child’s alleged deprivation must take into account not only what he has lost, but what he has received in return. Foster parents, on the other hand, do not automatically receive a new chjld with whom they will presumably have a more profitable relationship.
Second, unlike the situation in Craig v. Boren, 429 U. S. 190, 195-196, this is not a case where the failure to grant the parents their requested relief will inevitably tend to “[dilute] or adversely [affect]” the alleged constitutional rights of the children. Denying the parents a hearing simply has no effect whatever on the children’s separate claim to a hearing, and does not impair their alleged constitutional rights. There is therefore no standing in the parents to assert the children’s claims. See Note, Standing to Assert Constitutional Jus Tertii, 88 Harv. L. Rev. 423, 432 (1974), cited in Craig, supra, at 195.
I would nevertheless consider both the parents’ and the children’s claims in these eases, but only because the suit was originally brought on *858behalf of both the parents and the children, all of whom were parties plaintiff. While it is true that their interests may conflict, there was no reason not to allow counsel for the parents to continue to represent the children to the extent that their interests may be compatible. The conflict was avoided by the District Court’s appointment of independent counsel, who took a position opposite to that of the foster parents as to where the children’s welfare lay. The appointment of independent co'unsel, however, should not have left the children without advocacy for the position, right or wrong, that they are entitled to due process hearings. That position should have been left to be asserted by the counsel who originally brought the suit for the children. My view, therefore, is that the parents and the children are properly before the Court and entitled to assert their own separate claims, but that neither group has standing to assert the claims of the other.

 “That the Sanders have given Laura a good home and have shown her great love does not stamp as an abuse of discretion the Trial Justice’s determination to take her from them. Indeed, it is the extreme of love, affection and possessiveness manifested by the Sanders, together with the conduct which their emotional involvement impelled, that supplies the foundation of reasonableness and correctness for his determination. The vital fact is that Mr. and Mrs. Sanders are not, and presumably will never be, Laura’s parents by adoption. Their disregard of that fact and their seizure of full parental status in the eyes of the child might well be, or so the Trial Justice was entitled to find, a source of detriment to the child in the circumstances presented.” 5 N. Y. 2d., at 229, 156 N. E. 2d, at 703.

 The consequences of extending constitutional protection to the foster family relationship are, as the Court points out, ante, at 846-847, especially absurd when the child would otherwise be immediately returned to his natural parents. If the foster family relationship were to occupy the same constitutional plane as that of the natural family, the conflict between the constitutional rights of natural and foster parents would be totally irreconcilable.