T.W. by Enk v. Brophy
| Decision Date | 11 September 1997 |
| Docket Number | 96-4136,Nos. 96-3512,s. 96-3512 |
| Citation | 124 F.3d 893 |
| Parties | T.W. and M.W., minors, by their next friend, Scott ENK, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Thomas BROPHY, et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Kathleen Mitchell (argued), Louisville, KY, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.
John F. Jorgensen, Office of the Corporation Counsel, Milwaukee, WI, for Thomas Brophy.
Timothy W. Feeley, Stephen W. Hayes, Von Briesen, Purtell & Roper, Milwaukee, WI, for Catholic Social Services of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee Incorporated.
Richard A. Victor, Office of the Attorney General, Wisconsin Department of Justice, Madison, WI, for Mel Flanagan.
Harold Laufer (argued), Maria K. Myers, Louis F. Raymond, Susan G. Schellinger, Davis & Kuelthau, Milwaukee, WI, for Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee, Incorporated.
Peter D. Alberg, Wayne Van Ert, Otjen, Vanert, Stangle, Lieb & Weir, Milwaukee, WI, for Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, Incorporated.
Harvey J. Goldstein (argued), Milwaukee, WI, for Institute for Child and Family Development.
Before POSNER, Chief Judge, and COFFEY and EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judges.
In this suit--a flamboyant abuse of the process of the federal courts--two small children are purported to be seeking damages of $120 million against 24 defendants that constitute a cross-section of the officials and institutions concerned with the provision of social services to children in Milwaukee. The children, who are black, are said to claim that the defendants in violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment conspired to remove them for racist reasons from their white foster parents and place them with an aunt (black) who has abused the children sexually. The custody battle between the foster parents and the aunt has been litigated throughout the Wisconsin court system and the aunt has won.
To maintain a suit in a federal court, a child or mental incompetent must be represented by a competent adult. Gardner by Gardner v. Parson, 874 F.2d 131, 137 n. 10 (3d Cir.1989); 4 Moore's Federal Practice § 17.20, p. 17-87 (3d ed.1997). A child who does not have a guardian or other "duly appointed representative may sue by a next friend or by a guardian ad litem" appointed by the district court. Fed.R.Civ.P. 17(c). The terms are essentially interchangeable, but "next friend" is normally used when the child is the plaintiff, and "guardian ad litem" when the child is the defendant. (Just to add to the confusion, when the child does have a general representative, the representative will usually be designated as the child's "next friend," despite the wording of Rule 17(c) quoted above.) The court does not usually appoint a next friend; it is usually the next friend who has taken the initiative in suing on the child's behalf; but appointed or not, he can be challenged as not being a suitable representative, just as a guardian ad litem can be. Garrick v. Weaver, 888 F.2d 687, 693 (10th Cir.1989); Hull by Hull v. United States, 53 F.3d 1125, 1127 n. 1 (10th Cir.1995). When someone hauls a child into court as a defendant, the court has to appoint a representative for the child, because of the child's legal incapacity to litigate, and that is the guardian ad litem. Occasionally, for the "friendless" child who might have a legal claim, or if the next friend has a conflict of interest, the court will appoint a next friend or guardian ad litem to represent the child plaintiff in the litigation. In re Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific R.R., 788 F.2d 1280, 1282 (7th Cir.1986); Ad Hoc Committee of Concerned Teachers v. Greenburgh # 11 Union Free School District, 873 F.2d 25, 30-31 (2d Cir.1989). The two children who are named as the plaintiffs in this case have a guardian ad litem but not for this suit--in which, in fact, he is named as one of the defendants.
Rule 17(c) distinguishes between a guardian or other "duly appointed representative," on the one hand--in short, a general representative--and a guardian ad litem or a next friend, on the other hand--a special representative. If the general representative has a conflict of interest (for example because he is named as the defendant in the child's suit), or fails without reason to sue or defend (as the case may be), the child may with the court's permission sue by another next friend, or the court may appoint a guardian ad litem for the child. In re Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific R.R., supra, 788 F.2d at 1282; Ad Hoc Committee of Concerned Teachers v. Greenburgh # 11 Union Free School District, supra, 873 F.2d at 29-30; Chrissy F. by Medley v. Mississippi Department of Public Welfare, 883 F.2d 25 (5th Cir.1989); Adelman ex rel. Adelman v. Graves, 747 F.2d 986 (5th Cir.1984); Roberts v. Ohio Casualty Ins. Co., 256 F.2d 35, 39 (5th Cir.1958); 4 Moore's Federal Practice, supra, § 17.21[a], pp. 17-94 to 17-95. Yet even if the child's existing representative is in fact inadequate, another next friend can't jump into the case without first obtaining a court order disqualifying the existing representative from representing the child in the suit. Garrick v. Weaver, supra, 888 F.2d at 692-93; Susan R.M. by Charles L.M. v. Northeast Independent School District, 818 F.2d 455, 458 (5th Cir.1987).
Unless--and here we come to the heart of the dispute in this case--the court finds the child's general representative to be inadequate, it should not allow the general representative to be bypassed by appointing a special representative to litigate on behalf of his ward. Rule 17(c) doesn't say this in so many words, but it is implicit in the usual formulations of the court's powers under the rule, see Ad Hoc Committee of Concerned Teachers v. Greenburgh # 11 Union Free School District, supra, 873 F.2d at 29-30; Adelman ex rel. Adelman v. Graves, supra; Developmental Disabilities Advocacy Center, Inc. v. Melton, 689 F.2d 281, 285 (1st Cir.1982) , and was made explicit in Hoffert v. General Motors Corp., 656 F.2d 161, 164 (5th Cir.1981). "As a general rule, a federal court cannot appoint a guardian ad litem in an action in which the infant or incompetent already is represented by someone who is considered appropriate under the law of the forum state." 6A Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Mary Kay Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1570, p. 497 (2d ed.1990). It is a sensible general rule because the management of the affairs of infants, like other matters relating to domestic relations, is the primary responsibility of the states rather than of the federal government.
So far as appears, however, the child plaintiffs in the suit before us do not have a general representative, so there is no obstacle to their being represented in this suit by a special one. They have a custodian, the aunt, who would be the natural choice to be the children's general representative; and we shall see that the fact that she is named as a defendant in the suit would not necessarily allow her to be bypassed. But the defendants do not argue that either she or anyone else is the general representative of the children. The children's guardian ad litem, as we mentioned, was appointed to represent them in a different suit. Naturally the defendants do not point to the former foster parents as appropriate next friends.
One might have expected them to play this role. Instead a lawyer who had got wind of the dispute over the children's custody made contact with a man named Scott Enk, a self-described, and so far as relates to this case self-appointed, children's advocate, and the lawyer asked the district court to allow Enk to represent the children in this suit as their "next friend." One might have thought the lawyer would nominate herself as the next friend--it is common for a child's lawyer to be named (to name himself, really) as the child's next friend, and the practice was endorsed in Noe v. True, 507 F.2d 9, 12 (6th Cir.1974) (per curiam), though questioned in Gardner by Gardner v. Parson, supra, 874 F.2d at 140 n. 14, on the ground that "a lawyer who acts in both capacities may sometimes fail to distinguish between the two roles." We don't have to take sides in that debate. Evidently the lawyer named Enk rather than herself as the children's next friend because she had never met them and he has, though he does not know them well.
Ordinarily a next friend is a parent or other relative of the child plaintiff. Enk is not a relative of these children. He is a professional children's advocate who, having interested himself in the custody battle at the behest of the lawyer appearing for the plaintiffs in this suit and having been persuaded or persuaded himself that they are being ill-used by their aunt, by their guardian ad litem, and by the entire Wisconsin child-welfare establishment and judiciary, seeks to represent them so that they can bring this suit. The judge held that Enk is not a proper next friend of these children, and dismissed the suit with prejudice.
Since the constitutional rights of these children may have been infringed by the conduct of the defendants, the suit satisfies the standing requirement in Article III of the Constitution. The question who shall represent the children because of their incapacity to sue on their own is not a separate issue of standing. Even allowing a complete stranger to bring suit in their name as their next friend because they cannot sue on their own behalf would not violate Article III. But it might well offend the policy behind the requirement of standing, which is to confine the right to initiate and control federal court litigation to persons who have a concrete stake, rather than merely an ideological interest--passionate and motivating as such interests can be--in the litigation. Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, 164, 110 S.Ct. 1717, 1727, 109 L.Ed.2d 135 (1990); Illinois Department of Transportation v. Hinson, 122 F.3d 370, 373 (7th Cir....
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