Justices Limit Suits by Neglected Children : Law: In 7-2 vote, the Supreme Court gives states wide latitude in administering child care programs. Angry activists call decision ‘appalling.’

In a setback for child care advocates, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that federal judges have no power to force states to improve their care of abused and neglected children.

The 7-2 decision means that child care activists no longer will be able to file class-action suits in federal court demanding improvements in state or local programs for abused children.

Speaking for the court, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said that a 1980 law designed to aid state agencies in protecting abused children did not give these children an “enforceable right” to quality care. Rather, Congress “left a great deal of discretion” to state and local officials in how they carry out the $1.5-billion-a-year program, Rehnquist said.

Child care activists reacted angrily to the decision.

“This is pretty appalling. It means that the most defenseless people in our society--abused children--have no right to go into (federal) court, no matter how egregious the state program is,” said James D. Weill, an attorney for the Children’s Defense Fund.

The case (Suter vs. Artist M., 90-1488) arose in 1988 when child care advocates in Chicago charged that the Illinois child protective service was lax in protecting abused children. Specifically, they said that the agency failed to assign case workers to monitor children who were abused at home.

They filed a class-action suit on behalf of a group of abused children against Sue Suter, the director of the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services. The suit relied on the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, which obliged the state agency to undertake “reasonable efforts” to protect abused children in their homes, or if necessary, to find foster care for them.

Based on this law, a federal judge in Chicago ordered Suter’s agency to assign a case worker to a child within three days of the time he or she was reported as abused. On a 2-1 vote, the U.S. appeals court upheld this decision, calling it an example of the “reasonable efforts” demanded by the 1980 federal law.

But officials from 28 states, joined by the Bush Administration, urged the high court to reverse that decision and remove federal judges from enforcing the law.

“The states should have substantial flexibility” in seeking to provide aid and protection for abused children, the U.S. Department of Justice said. If problems arise, state juvenile courts or officials of the Department of Health and Human Services can demand changes, the Administration said.

The Supreme Court agreed Wednesday. If Congress intends to give persons a right to sue in federal court, it should say so “unambiguously,” Rehnquist said from the bench.

The decision is consistent with the Rehnquist court’s tendency to limit the powers of federal judges and to give more discretion to state and local officials. The 1980 law was intended to subsidize and improve child care services, not set strict standards that could be enforced by a judge, the chief justice maintained.

But the two dissenters, Justices Harry A. Blackmun and John Paul Stevens, noted that the court took a nearly opposite approach two years ago involving hospitals that sought higher reimbursements from the states for Medicaid services.

That 5-4 decision (Wilder vs. Virginia Hospital Assn.) gave hospitals a right to sue in federal court, and Wednesday’s ruling is “plainly inconsistent” with that ruling, Blackmun said.

Left unmentioned was the fact that the Wilder decision was written by Justice William J. Brennan and joined by Justice Thurgood Marshall, both of whom have since retired.