Williams v. Secretary of Executive Office of Human Services

• Decision Date: 11 March 1993
• Parties: , 61 USLW 2602, 2 A.D. Cases 625, 1 A.D.D. 949, 3 NDLR P 296 Albert WILLIAMS & others 1 v. SECRETARY OF THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF HUMAN SERVICES & another 2 (and a companion case 3 ).
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 447

609 N.E.2d 447

414 Mass. 551, 61 USLW 2602, 2 A.D.

Cases 625, 1 A.D.D. 949,

3 NDLR P 296

Albert WILLIAMS & others ¹ v. SECRETARY OF THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF HUMAN SERVICES &amp another ² (and a companion case³).

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Suffolk.

Argued Oct. 6, 1992.

Decided March 11, 1993.

Stephen H. Oleskey, Boston (David A. Wilson, J. Kent Wicker & Carla A. DiMare with him), for J.S. & another.

Steven A. Hitov, Boston (Ellen N. Wallace with him), for Albert Williams & others.

Douglas H. Wilkins, Assistant Attorney General (William L. Pardee & Eleanor L. Coe, Asst. Attys. Gen., with him), for the defendants.

Mitchell A. Kaplan & Michelle S. Wolf, Boston, for Lawyers Clearinghouse on Homelessness & Affordable Housing, amicus curiae, submitted a brief.

Steven J. Schwartz & Robert Fleischner, Northampton, for Coalition for the Legal Rights of the Disabled & others, amici curiae, submitted a brief.

Bonnie Milstein, Washington, DC, for Mental Health Law Project, amicus curiae, submitted a brief.

Before LIACOS, C.J., and ABRAMS, NOLAN, LYNCH, O'CONNOR and GREANEY, JJ.

ABRAMS, Justice.

These cases present a number of issues concerning the policies and practices of the Department of Mental Health (DMH), in providing services to patients under its care, and in discharging patients. The plaintiffs contend that the DMH's policies violate (1) the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 12101 et seq., P.L. 101-336, 104 Stat. 328 (1992); (2) § 504 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. § 794 (1988); (3) the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 (FHAA), 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f) (1988); (4) Federal and State equal protection and due process guarantees; (5) a common law duty not to "negligently discharge" the plaintiffs into an unstable environment; or (6) the State statute governing the DMH, G.L. c. 19 (1990 ed.).

Proceedings below. The actions were brought on behalf of homeless and mentally ill individuals who seek to require the defendants to modify the manner in which the DMH provides services to certain patients under its care; the plaintiffs also seek to change the manner in which the DMH provides residential housing referral services and determines whether patients should be discharged.

The first complaint (J.S. complaint), filed by two former inpatients of the DMH (J.S and D.M.), through their "next friends," the mayor of Boston, a psychiatric nurse at Boston City Hospital, and the Pine Street Inn (a corporation), was filed on December 3, 1990.

The second complaint (Williams complaint), also filed by a former inpatient of the DMH, Williams (and intervener Joseph Kornegay) (hereinafter Williams plaintiffs), and two private organizations (Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless and Mental Patients' Liberation Front, doing business as the Ruby Rogers Advocacy Drop-In Center), was filed in June, 1991. Joseph Kornegay's motion to intervene was allowed in December, 1991. The complaints raise the same State and Federal constitutional due process and Federal Rehabilitation Act theories. The Williams complaint adds a tort claim for "negligent discharge," a State statutory claim (G.L. c. 19, §§ 1 et seq.), and a claim under the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988, 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f).

In January, 1992, the plaintiffs amended their complaints to include additional claims under the ADA.

The judge denied the plaintiffs' motion for certification as a class action. Pursuant to the judge's suggestion, the defendants offered a test case stipulation dated May 5, 1992. See Barry v. Dymo Graphic Sys., Inc., 394 Mass. 830, 834-835, 478 N.E.2d 707 (1985); Carpenter v. Suffolk Franklin Sav. Bank, 370 Mass. 314, 322, 346 N.E.2d 892 (1976) (allowing test case procedure outlined in Katz v. Carte Blanche Corp., 496 F.2d 747, 758-762 [3d Cir.], cert. denied, 419 U.S. 885, 95 S.Ct. 152, 42 L.Ed.2d 125 [1974] ). ⁴

After the close of discovery, the defendants moved for summary judgment pursuant to Mass.R.Civ.P. 56, 365 Mass. 824 (1974), on all issues. The judge allowed the defendants' motion on the Federal and State due process claims, the tort claim for "negligent discharge," the Williams plaintiffs' claims under G.L. c. 19, § 12, and the J.S. plaintiffs' claims under G.L. c. 19, § 1.

The judge denied summary judgment on the plaintiffs' ADA claims, the Rehabilitation Act claims, Williams's FHAA claims, and the J.S. plaintiffs' Federal and State equal protection claims. Each side has appealed the judge's decisions as to the issues on which the judge ruled adversely to that party on summary judgment. We granted the parties' joint application for direct and expedited appellate review. We conclude that the defendants are entitled to summary judgment on all claims, including declarations, on each of the plaintiffs' claims that the plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate the availability of relief under the ADA, the Federal Rehabilitation Act, the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988, Federal and State due process and equal protection guarantees, the Commonwealth's tort law on "negligent discharge," and G.L. c. 19.

The plaintiffs. Williams makes the following allegations. Williams currently lives in the Brighton section of Boston. He receives supplemental security income payments. He has been diagnosed as schizophrenic; he suffers from schizo-affective disorder, or an antisocial personality, as well as from temporal lobe epilepsy. Although Williams has been neither an inpatient at nor involuntarily committed to a DMH facility since he was discharged from the Massachusetts Mental Health Community Mental Health Center on November 9, 1989, he had been an inpatient at various DMH facilities prior to that date. Williams has not been hospitalized in any facility, public or private, since November 28, 1989, when he was discharged from Brigham and Women's Hospital. Williams has received medication to control his mental condition from a DMH-affiliated counseling center.

Joseph Kornegay, the intervener, is thirty-five years old; he became homeless after inpatient treatment at a DMH facility. Kornegay has been diagnosed as having a major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder; he also suffers from substance abuse (alcoholism) and an unrelated physical ailment. At the time of the complaint, Kornegay resided at the Solomon Carter Fuller Community Mental Health Center in Boston.

J.S. makes the following allegations. J.S. has borderline personality disorder and is suicidal. He has been an inpatient in various DMH facilities and did not qualify for treatment at a DMH transitional psychiatric shelter because he was deemed to be suicidal. J.S. has been an occupant of a number of shelters, including Long Island, Shattuck, and Pine Street Inn. He claims to require immediate care and continuity of services.

D.M. is thirty-one years old and is schizophrenic. He has been an intermittent resident at DMH facilities. He has been an occupant of shelters such as the Pine Street Inn, Harbor Lights, and Long Island Intake. He has repeatedly sought readmission to a DMH facility, sometimes unsuccessfully, sometimes obtaining a brief admission.

1. Americans with Disabilities Act. The defendants assert that the judge erred in denying their motion for summary judgment on the issue of the validity of the DMH's structure and practices under the ADA, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12101 et seq. We agree.

The ADA provides that "no qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity." 42 U.S.C. § 12132. The plaintiffs articulate a theory under 28 C.F.R. § 35.130(d) (1992) (requiring that "public entity shall administer services, programs, and activities in the most integrated setting appropriate to the needs of qualified individuals with disabilities"). The plaintiffs argue that the DMH has not provided a sufficient amount of integrated supported housing to satisfy the requirements of the ADA.

The plaintiffs' argument fails, in that nothing in the ADA requires that a specific proportion of housing placements provided by a public mental health service be in "integrated" housing. ⁵ Nor does anything in the ADA or its "integration regulations" address the absence of sufficient integrated residential placements to satisfy the entire demand for such services. Federal courts have rejected the argument that analogous discrimination provisions of the Rehabilitation Act require a State to furnish specific services. See Clark v. Cohen, 613 F.Supp. 684 (D.Pa.1985), aff'd, 794 F.2d 79 (3d Cir.1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 962, 107 S.Ct. 459, 93 L.Ed.2d 404 (1986) (§ 504 of Federal Rehabilitation Act imposes no affirmative obligations on States to furnish services). See also Alexander v. Choate, 469 U.S. 287, 306-309, 105 S.Ct. 712, 722-724, 83 L.Ed.2d 661 (1985) (rejecting as unworkable theory that Federal Rehabilitation Act restricts State discretion in choosing proper mix of amount, scope, and durational limitations on State-funded services, or requires State always to make broad-based distributive decisions in way most favorable, or least disadvantageous, to the handicapped). Nor does a health care provider discriminate when it fails to develop greater capacity or expertise to treat disabilities, under the Federal Rehabilitation Act. Ciampa v. Massachusetts Rehabilitation Comm'n, 718 F.2d 1, 5 (1st Cir.1983). The same considerations apply in construing the ADA. Although we recognize that deinstitutionalization with subsequent services may be highly desirable for individuals in the plaintiffs' position, such services are not required as a matter of law by the ADA. See, e.g., Phillips v. Thompson, 715 F.2d 365, 368 (7th Cir.1983).

As support for their argument that the DMH has violated the ADA by operating a residential services system that...