Rosie D. ex rel. John D. v. Swift

• Decision Date: 07 November 2002
• Docket Number: No. 02-1604.,02-1604.
• Citation: 310 F.3d 230
• Parties: ROSIE D., by her parents, JOHN and Debra D., et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Jane M. SWIFT, acting Governor, et al., Defendants, Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

310 F.3d 230

ROSIE D., by her parents, JOHN and Debra D., et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Jane M. SWIFT, acting Governor, et al., Defendants, Appellants.

No. 02-1604.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard September 11, 2002.

Decided November 7, 2002.

Deirdre Roney, Assistant Attorney General, with whom Thomas F. Reilly, Attorney General, was on brief, for appellants.

Steven J. Schwartz, with whom Cathy E. Costanzo, Center for Public Representation, James C. Burling, Sara J. Shanahan, John S. Rhee, Hale and Dorr, LLP, Frank Laski, and Mental Health Legal Advisors were on brief, for appellees.

Steven A. Hitov and Victoria Pulos on brief for National Health Law Program, National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, National Mental Health Ass'n, National Ass'n of Protection and Advocacy Systems, Mass. Law Reform Institute, Western Mass. Legal Services, and the Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, amici curiae.

Before SELYA, Circuit Judge, COFFIN and B. FLETCHER,^* Senior Circuit Judges.

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

In recent years, the Supreme Court has redefined the calculus of federalism, tilting the scales more and more toward states' rights. This appeal represents an attempt by the named defendants — a complement of Massachusetts officials, including the governor, two cabinet officers, and the Commissioner of the Division of Medical Assistance — to capitalize upon that trend. As we explain below, they seek to push the envelope too far.

We begin with basics. In this class action, the plaintiffs seek prospective injunctive relief to vindicate their view that the federal Medicaid Act requires Massachusetts to provide home-based mental health services to Medicaid-eligible children. The defendants resist the plaintiffs' interpretation of the Medicaid Act. As a preliminary matter, however, they claim that the Eleventh Amendment bars the prosecution of the plaintiffs' action in a federal court (and, thus, obviates any need to address the substantive question).

The district court rejected the defendants' Eleventh Amendment sortie, and the defendants thereupon filed this interlocutory appeal. We affirm the district court's ruling. While recent Supreme Court decisions have made some inroads on the venerable doctrine of Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908), they have not eviscerated that doctrine, and only very narrow exceptions infringe on the well established right to ask for prospective injunctive relief against state officials in a federal forum. Consequently, the Eleventh Amendment does not preclude the maintenance of this action.

I. BACKGROUND

Congress created the Medicaid program, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1396-1396v, in 1965. Over time, it augmented the program's coverage to provide early and periodic screening, diagnosis and treatment (EPSDT) services to Medicaid-eligible children. See id. §§ 1396a(a)(10), 1396a(a)(43), 1396d(a)(4)(B), 1396d(r)(5). Congress intended that these revisions would give children access to preventive health care (e.g., vision, hearing, and dental services), preempt the onset of childhood illness, and identify children with disabilities in need of early attention. See, e.g., H.R.Rep. No. 101-247, at §§ 395-401 (1989), reprinted in 1989 U.S.C.C.A.N. 1906, 2121-2127; S.Rep. No. 90-744, at § II-G (1967), reprinted in 1967 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2834, 2869-2871. The EPSDT reforms enacted by Congress in 1989 (as part of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1989, Pub.L. No. 101-239, 103 Stat. 2106) were particularly noteworthy in two pertinent respects. First, Congress obligated participating states to provide a comprehensive package of preventive services that met reasonable standards of medical necessity. 42 U.S.C. §§ 1396a(a)(43), 1396d(r). Second, Congress expanded EPSDT services to include "[s]uch other necessary health care, diagnostic services, treatment, and other measures described [as medical assistance] to correct or ameliorate defects and physical and mental illnesses and conditions discovered by the screening services, whether or not such services are covered under the State plan." Id. § 1396d(r)(5). In effect, these amendments required states to provide Medicaid coverage for any service "identified as medically necessary through the EPSDT program." 135 Cong. Rec. S6899, 6900 (daily ed. June 19, 1989) (statement of Sen. Chafee).

The case before us arises out of a dispute over the Commonwealth's obligations under sections 1396a(a)(43) and 1396d(r)(5). The plaintiffs are nine Medicaid-eligible children, acting through their parents or guardians, who seek to compel the Commonwealth to furnish them with home-based mental health services. Although their particular ailments vary, each plaintiff has been diagnosed with a severe psychiatric or behavioral disorder. These debilitating conditions have led to a wide array of unhappy results, including expulsions from schools, cyclical transfers between treating facilities, repeated hospitalizations and years spent away from family members at crisis stabilization units.

In the plaintiffs' view, the Massachusetts Medicaid program, as presently administered, relies almost exclusively on institution-based psychiatric care. The plaintiffs allege that such a narrowly focused treatment regime cannot rehabilitate (and, indeed, may exacerbate) their conditions; that home-based psychiatric care is medically necessary for effective treatment; that the Commonwealth, notwithstanding its clear statutory obligation to provide such services, has taken no action; and that its lethargy flies in the face of the EPSDT mandates.

To right these perceived wrongs, the plaintiffs invoked 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and brought suit in federal district court.¹ They claim to represent thousands of Medicaid-eligible children, resident in Massachusetts, who suffer from similarly severe behavioral, emotional, and psychiatric disorders and who require home-based care. The gravamen of their complaint is that the Medicaid statute entitles the members of the putative class to, and obligates the Commonwealth to provide, intensive home-based mental health services. They further allege that the defendants' persistent denial of such medically necessary treatment has created a "mental health crisis" within Massachusetts. On this basis, they ask the district court to order the defendants to reform the Massachusetts Medicaid program to include the home-based mental health care that the EPSDT provisions allegedly require.

The defendants moved to dismiss the action on three grounds. First, they claim that the Commonwealth's sovereign immunity, enshrined in the Eleventh Amendment of the United States Constitution, bars the suit.² Second, they assert that the EPSDT provisions of the Medicaid Act do not create private rights enforceable under section 1983. Third, they posit that the plaintiffs' complaint fails to state an actionable claim. The plaintiffs opposed this motion and the district court, ruling ore sponte, denied it.

The defendants responded by filing this interlocutory appeal. The appeal is proper as to the Eleventh Amendment issue, as pretrial orders granting or denying Eleventh Amendment immunity are immediately appealable. See P.R. Aqueduct & Sewer Auth. v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., 506 U.S. 139, 141, 113 S.Ct. 684, 121 L.Ed.2d 605 (1993). We affirm the district court's ruling as it pertains to the issue of Eleventh Amendment immunity. The other facets of the order denying the motion to dismiss are not ripe for review, and we express no opinion as to those issues.

II. ANALYSIS

As a general matter, the Eleventh Amendment bars suits in federal courts against unconsenting states (including "official capacity" suits against state hierarchs). De Leon Lopez v. Corporacion Insular de Seguros, 931 F.2d 116, 121 (1st Cir.1991) (collecting cases). This proscription is subject to a well recognized exception memorialized in Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. at 159-60, 28 S.Ct. 441. The exception allows federal courts, "notwithstanding the absence of consent, waiver or evidence of congressional assertion of national hegemony, [to] enjoin state officials to conform future conduct to the requirements of federal law." Lane v. First Nat'l Bank, 871 F.2d 166, 172 n. 5 (1st Cir.1989) (quoting Ramirez v. P.R. Fire Serv., 715 F.2d 694, 697 (1st Cir.1983)).

For nearly a century, the doctrine of Ex parte Young flourished and suits against state officials seeking prospective injunctive relief were commonplace. E.g., Quern v. Jordan, 440 U.S. 332, 346-47, 99 S.Ct. 1139, 59 L.Ed.2d 358 (1979); Ramirez, 715 F.2d at 697; Coalition for Basic Human Needs v. King, 654 F.2d 838, 842 (1st Cir.1981) (per curiam). Lately, however, the Supreme Court has fashioned an exception to the exception, applicable to certain cases in which "Congress has created a remedial scheme for the enforcement of a particular federal right." Seminole Tribe v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44, 74, 116 S.Ct. 1114, 134 L.Ed.2d 252 (1996). Since the plaintiffs here sue only for prospective injunctive relief, and do so under the imprimatur of Ex parte Young, this case requires us to evaluate, for the first time, the extent to which Seminole Tribe has narrowed the Ex parte Young exception.

The litigants sketch the suggested contours of this new limitation in very different ways. The plaintiffs (and the amici) view Seminole Tribe as a rara avis, asserting that it relates only to those few federal statutes that contain comprehensive remedial schemes, and otherwise leaves the doctrine of Ex parte Young alive and well. The defendants contend that the Seminole Tribe constraint applies much more broadly. They tell us that, under Seminole Tribe, the inquiry into the applicability of Ex parte Young in any given case turns upon a comparison between the remedies conferred by the statute governing the dispute and the judicial remedies available under Ex parte Young; whenever the statute provides anodynes that are more limited...