Reflections on the Pending Supreme Court Challenge to the Affordable Care Act in California v. Texas: Part One in a Series

VIKRAM DAVID AMAR, EVAN CAMINKER, JASON MAZZONE

In this first of a series of columns on the latest prominent challenge to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Illinois law dean Vikram David Amar, Michigan Law dean emeritus Evan Caminker, and Illinois law professor Jason Mazzone examine the stare decisis effects of the Supreme Court’s initial blockbuster decision involving the ACA. The authors demonstrate several, perhaps surprising, ways that the earlier decision should shape how the Court views the present challenge.

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Howell v. Father Maloney's Boys' Haven

Docket: 20-5122

Opinion Date: October 1, 2020

Judge: Jeffrey S. Sutton

Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law

The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services regulates the placement of at-risk children in the Commonwealth’s custody. Father Maloney’s Boys and Girls Haven, a private, non-profit entity, educates, treats, and provides day-to-day care to abused and neglected children at a residential campus. The Commonwealth hired Haven to provide care for neglected children. The Haven hired Howell to work with “horses and youth.” Howell had worked one-on-one with Lester, a Haven resident, for three months. Lester arrived early one day, grabbed Howell, choked her unconscious, dragged her into the bathroom, and sexually assaulted her. Howell, unable to return to work, sued Haven and the Kentucky agency, alleging state-law claims and a 42 U.S.C. 1983 claim based on her Fourteenth Amendment interest to be free from unjustified personal intrusions. The district court dismissed the state agency from the case, dismissed the federal claim, and remanded the state-law claims to state court. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, finding that Haven is not a state actor. Haven houses, educates, and provides day-to-day care to the children but has no power to remove children and place them under appropriate care or in juvenile correctional facilities—the kinds of things state actors traditionally do. Kentucky has not “traditionally and exclusively” performed Haven’s functions, and Haven is not standing in Kentucky’s shoes when offering eleemosynary services. Requiring private actors to follow statutory mandates, even if “extensive,” doesn’t transform them into public servants.