NCYL has agreed to represent a class of approximately 18,000 indigent children with severe emotional and mental disabilities who have sued Idaho over deficiencies in care. The original complaint, filed more than 30 years ago in Jeff D. v. Otter,¹ alleged that Idaho was providing inadequate care in violation of the plaintiffs’ statutory and constitutional rights. Motivated by continuing problems with the delivery of care to poor and disabled children living in Idaho, NCYL decided to become co-counsel with plaintiffs’ lawyer Howard Belodoff.

In 1980, Jeff D., on behalf of a class of children, brought a lawsuit against Idaho’s governor and state officials. The complaint in federal district court alleged that inadequate care was being provided in violation of state and federal laws and the Idaho and U.S. Constitutions. The plaintiffs sought both injunctive and declaratory relief.

Three years later the parties negotiated a settlement that included virtually all the injunctive relief sought by the plaintiffs. The agreement was entered by the district court as a consent decree. Unfortunately, the defendants failed to abide by the promises made in that 1983 decree, or in the two other consent decrees that followed in 1990 and 1998 (after the plaintiffs filed motions to enforce the first decree). Years of inaction and stonewalling by the defendants resulted in prolonged litigation and multiple appeals.²

Following the 1998 consent decree, the defendants were required to prepare a “Needs Assessment” and compliance plan. The district court eventually ordered the parties to jointly develop a compliance plan that provided “a comprehensive blueprint of how the defendants would meet the requirements of the decrees.” In February 2001, the parties submitted an “Implementation Plan,” which the court adopted. The plan included 50 specific recommendations and 252 Action Items.

Two years later, the court directed the parties to create a matrix identifying the Action Items with which the defendants had, and had not, complied. After reviewing the matrix, the court inexplicably determined following a hearing in September 2006 that “Plaintiffs had failed to sustain their burden of proof or that the Defendants had substantially complied with the majority of Action Items. With respect to 21 of the Action Items, however, the court held that the plaintiffs had ‘show[n] by clear and convincing evidence that [the Defendants substantially] violated the consent judgment . . . , and that the violation was not based on good faith and reasonable interpretation of the judgment.’” ³

The court ordered the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare “to take all steps necessary to substantially comply” with the 21 Action Items within 120 days. In June 2007, the defendants filed affidavits of further compliance and moved to vacate the consent decrees. The district court ruled that the defendants had substantially complied with all of the Action Items, and vacated the decrees.

The plaintiffs appealed the district court’s ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. On May 25, 2011, the Ninth Circuit reversed, finding that the defendants, not plaintiffs, were required to show that they had substantially complied with the consent decrees or that the facts or law had changed such that the judgment was no longer equitable. The Ninth Circuit also found that the lower court erred by accepting the Action Items as the “entire measure of compliance with the consent decrees.”

NCYL’s involvement comes at a critical time in the 32-year history of Jeff D. v. Otter. Since the district court’s action vacating the consent decrees, Idaho has dismantled many of the reforms it enacted as part of complying with those decrees. Children’s mental health services get substantially less funding than that mandated by the district court five years ago. More troubling still, current funding is below 1990 levels, even though the cost of services has risen and the general population of Idaho has almost doubled in the past two decades. The data also indicate that a substantial portion of resources are being used to provide mental health services only after a child has been committed to the juvenile justice system.

NCYL attorneys are working with local counsel in Idaho to evaluate the defendants’ current level of compliance with the consent decrees. They hope to engage the defendants in further negotiations.

1. 80-CV-04091 BLW.
2. See Jeff D. v. Kempthorne (Jeff D. IV), 365 F.3d 844 (9th Cir. 2004); Jeff D. v. Andrus (Jeff D. III), 899 F.2d 753 (9th Cir. 1990) (amended opinion); Jeff D. v. Andrus, 861 F.2d 591 (9th Cir. 1988); Jeff D. v. Evans, 743 F.2d 648 (9th Cir. 1984), rev’d, 475 U.S. 717 (1986).
3. Jeff D. v. Otter, 643 F.3d 278, 282 (9th