Welsch v. Likins, s. 76-1473

Citation550 F.2d 1122
Decision Date09 March 1977
Docket NumberNos. 76-1473,76-1797,s. 76-1473
PartiesPatricia WELSCH et al., Appellees, v. Vera J. LIKINS, Commissioner of the Department of Public Welfare of the State of Minnesota, et al., Appellants. Patricia WELSCH et al., Appellees, v. Vera J. LIKINS, Commissioner of the Department of Public Welfare of the State of Minnesota, et al., Appellants.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)

Thomas L. Fabel, Deputy Atty. Gen., Dept. of Public Welfare, St. Paul, Minn., for appellants; Warren R. Spannaus, Atty. Gen., St. Paul, Minn., on brief.

Luther A. Granquist, Legal Aid Society, Minneapolis, Minn., on brief for appellees.

Philip B. Kurland and Daniel D. Polsby, Chicago, Ill., for Senate and House of Representatives of State of Minnesota, amici curiae.

William J. Janklow, Atty. Gen., Pierre, S. D., for State of South Dakota, amici curiae.

John L. Hill, Atty. Gen. of Texas, David M. Kendall, 1st Asst. Atty. Gen., Thomas W. Choate, Special Asst. Atty. Gen. for State of Texas, Austin, Tex., Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen. for State of Florida, Tallahassee, Fla., Ronald Y. Amemiya, Atty. Gen. for State of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii, and Brooks McLemore, Atty. Gen. for State of Tennessee, Nashville, Tenn., and Paul L. Douglas, Atty. Gen. of Neb., Lincoln, Neb., for State of Texas, amicus curiae.

Paul R. Friedman, Jane Bloom Yohalem and Patricia M. Wald, Mental Health Law Project, Washington, D. C., on brief of amici curiae, National Ass'n for Retarded Citizens, Minnesota Ass'n for Retarded Citizens and Council for Exceptional Children.

Jeffrey Cooper, J. Justin Blewitt, Deputy Attys. Gen., Chief, Civil Litigation and Robert

P. Kane, Atty. Gen., Dept. of Justice, Harrisburg, Pa., on brief of amicus curiae, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Before BRIGHT and HENLEY, Circuit Judges, and HARPER, Senior District Judge. *

HENLEY, Circuit Judge.

These two appeals, arising out of the same case, come to us from the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota. 1 The defendants are, respectively, the Commissioner of Public Welfare of the State of Minnesota, certain subordinate officials of the Department, the Minnesota State Commissioner of Administration, and the Minnesota State Commissioner of Finance. They appeal from four orders of the district court entered in 1976, which are based upon earlier findings and an earlier order determining that unconstitutional practices and conditions existed at the Cambridge State Hospital, an institution for mentally retarded persons, located some forty miles north of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and directing that affirmative steps be taken to bring the institution up to a standard of constitutional acceptability.

More specifically, the defendants complain principally of an order entered by the district court on April 15, 1976 which imposed requirements in addition to those imposed by the district court's underlying order of October 1, 1974, and of an order entered on July 28, 1976 which in effect enjoined the Commissioner of Administration and the Commissioner of Finance from complying with a Minnesota constitutional provision and Minnesota statutes which stand in the way of the Department of Public Welfare in attempting to comply with the requirements of the district court.

Defendants also appeal from an order entered on March 30, 1976 which struck from the record certain evidence tendered by the defendants in the course of hearings conducted by the district court in November and December, 1975 after the plaintiffs had filed a Supplemental Complaint in June of that year, and from that part of an order entered on May 19, 1976 which denied the defendants' motion to dismiss the Supplemental Complaint.

We affirm the district court's order of March 30 and the portion of the order of May 19, 1976 from which defendants appeal. We also affirm the order of April 15, 1976. We vacate the order of July 28 and remand the case for further consideration after the Minnesota Legislature has concluded its current session which is now in progress.

We observe that the litigation has attracted interest outside Minnesota, and we have been favored with a number of amicus curiae briefs to which due consideration has been given.

I

In addition to the Cambridge State Hospital, the State of Minnesota owns and operates five other hospitals for the care and treatment of mentally retarded persons. 2 The other hospitals are the Brainerd State Hospital, the Faribault State Hospital, and Hastings State Hospital, the Moose Lake State Hospital, and the Northwest Achievement Center at the Fergus Falls State Hospital. 3

This litigation was commenced in 1972 as a class action brought by residents of the respective hospitals, who sued by their natural guardians and next friends. All of the plaintiffs and the members of the class represented by them were committed to the institutions by Minnesota courts pursuant to the provisions of the Minnesota Hospitalization and Commitment Act, M.S.A. §§ 253A.01 et seq.

From an early stage, the controversy centered on conditions and practices at the Cambridge institution, and the district court defined a sub-class of plaintiffs consisting of residents of that institution, which is the only one immediately involved in these appeals.

The plaintiffs claimed for themselves and for members of their class that practices and conditions at the respective institutions were such that residents were being denied rights guaranteed to them not only by the laws of Minnesota but also by the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, including its incorporation of the eighth amendment which prohibits cruel and unusual punishments. Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief. Federal subject matter jurisdiction, which is established, was predicated upon 42 U.S.C. § 1983 read in connection with 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3).

The original defendants were the Commissioner of the Public Welfare Department and the Administrators of the several hospitals that have been identified, including Dr. Dale Offerman, the Administrator of the Cambridge institution. The State Commissioners of Administration and Finance did not come into the case until plaintiffs filed their Supplemental Complaint in 1975.

The district court held a twelve day trial in late 1973 in which much evidence, including expert testimony, was received. On February 15, 1974 the district court filed a long memorandum opinion amounting to a declaratory judgment; however, at that time the district court did not make any specific findings of fact or enter any order granting or denying specific relief. Welsch v. Likins, 373 F.Supp. 487 (D.Minn.1974). 4

The 1974 opinion of the district court that has just been mentioned includes a scholarly discussion of the constitutional rights of mentally retarded persons who are judicially committed to state institutions. We can add nothing of substance to that opinion.

The district court found generally that at least most mentally retarded persons can profit to some extent from treatment and can improve their unfortunate situation provided that their treatment is proper and is administered systematically and by qualified people. 5

The district court held as a matter of law that apart from any right to treatment mandated by state statutes, mental retardees committed to state institutions without their consent have a federal constitutional right to treatment. The district court also held as a matter of law that retardees are constitutionally entitled to the benefit of the least restrictive environment consistent with their needs and conditions, and that they are constitutionally entitled not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishments prohibited by the eighth amendment as carried forward into the fourteenth amendment.

A further hearing was conducted in May, 1974, and on October 1, 1974 the district court filed full findings of fact and conclusions of law, amounting to an opinion, and entered a comprehensive injunctive order. That opinion and that order were limited to the Cambridge State Hospital, and the order has been referred to in the record as the Cambridge Order.

While the district court found that Cambridge was not in any sense a "snake pit" institution, it did find that serious deficiencies amounting to constitutional deprivations existed, and that they had to be remedied.

It was found that the physical plant at Cambridge was deficient in a number of respects, that the treatment program was inadequate, and that the institution was seriously understaffed as far as providing adequate habilitation for residents was concerned.

The district court also found that in instances residents were subjected, albeit not maliciously or vindictively, to what amounted to cruel and unusual punishments. The trial judge was concerned with the practice of controlling undesirable behavior by placing residents in a form of solitary confinement known as "seclusion," by the use of physical restraining devices, and by the indiscriminate use of tranquilizing and behavior controlling drugs.

Appendix A to the Cambridge Order includes twenty-seven specific requirements and prohibitions. The district court required improvements in physical plant, including the air conditioning and carpeting of certain facilities, and it also undertook to limit and regulate the use of seclusion and restraining devices and the use of drugs in the control of resident behavior. Perhaps most importantly, the district court also made detailed staffing requirements, compliance with which required the Department of Welfare to employ numerous additional personnel.

Jurisdiction of the case for appropriate purposes was retained.

The defendants have never quarreled with the legal declarations contained in the February, 1974 opinion of the district court, and indeed have never quarreled with the requirements of the Cambridge Order from which the defendants...

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