| Youngberg v. Romeo
(No. 80-1429)
644 F.2d 147, vacated and remanded. |
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| Syllabus
| Opinion
[ Powell ] | Concurrence
[ Blackmun ] | Concurrence
[ Burger ] |
| HTML version
PDF version | HTML version
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Youngberg v. Romeo
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER, concurring in the judgment.
I agree with much of the Court's opinion. However, I would hold flatly that respondent has no constitutional right to training, or "habilitation," per se. The parties, and the Court, acknowledge that respondent cannot function outside the state institution, even with the assistance of relatives. Indeed, even now neither respondent nor his family seeks his discharge from state care. Under these circumstances, the State's provision of food, shelter, medical care, and living conditions as safe as the inherent nature of the institutional environment reasonably allows, serves to justify the State's custody of respondent. The State did not seek custody of respondent; his family understandably sought the State's aid to meet a serious need. [p330]
I agree with the Court that some amount of self-care instruction may be necessary to avoid unreasonable infringement of a mentally retarded person's interests in safety and freedom from restraint; but it seems clear to me that the Constitution does not otherwise place an affirmative duty on the State to provide any particular kind of training or habilitation -- even such as might be encompassed under the essentially standardless rubric "minimally adequate training," to which the Court refers. See ante at 319, and n. 24. Cf. 644 F.2d 147, 176 (CA3 1980) (Seitz, C.J., concurring in judgment). Since respondent asserts a right to "minimally adequate" habilitation "[q]uite apart from its relationship to decent care," Brief for Respondent 23, unlike the Court, I see no way to avoid the issue. [*] Cf. ante at 318.
I also point out that, under the Court's own standards, it is largely irrelevant whether respondent's experts were of the opinion that "additional training programs, including self-care programs, were needed to reduce [respondent's] aggressive behavior," ibid. -- a prescription far easier for "spectators" to give than for an institution to implement. The training program devised for respondent by petitioners and other professionals at Pennhurst was, according to the Court's opinion, "presumptively valid"; and
liability may be imposed only when the decision by the professional is such a substantial departure from accepted professional judgment, practice, or standards as to demonstrate that the person responsible actually did not base the decision on such a judgment.
Ante at 323. Thus, even if respondent could demonstrate that the training programs at Pennhurst were inconsistent with generally accepted or prevailing professional practice -- if indeed there be such -- this would not avail him so long as his training regimen was actually prescribed by the institution's professional staff.
Finally, it is worth noting that the District Court's instructions in this case were, on the whole, consistent with the Court's opinion today; indeed, some instructions may have been overly generous to respondent. Although the District Court erred in giving an instruction incorporating an Eighth Amendment "deliberate indifference" standard, the court also instructed, for example, that petitioners could be held liable if they "were aware of and failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent repeated attacks upon" respondent. See ante at 312. Certainly if petitioners took "all reasonable steps" to prevent attacks on respondent, they cannot be said to have deprived him either of reasonably safe conditions or of training necessary to achieve reasonable safety.
* Indeed, in the trial court, respondent asserted a broad claim to such
treatment as [would] afford [him] a reasonable opportunity to acquire and maintain those life skills necessary to cope as effectively as [his] capacities permit.
App. to Pet. for Cert. 94a.
Respondent also maintains that, because state law purportedly creates a right to "care and treatment," he has a federal substantive right under the Due Process Clause to enforcement of this state right. See ante at 316, n.19. This contention is obviously frivolous; were every substantive right created by state law enforceable under the Due Process Clause, the distinction between state and federal law would quickly be obliterated.