No. 95-1441.ZS Summary

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(Bench Opinion)

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

BLESSING, DIRECTOR, ARIZONA DEPARTMENT
OF ECONOMIC SECURITY v. FREESTONE et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the ninth circuit
No. 95-1441. Argued January 6, 1997-Decided April 21, 1997

Respondents, five Arizona mothers whose children are eligible for state
child support services under Title IV-D of the Social Security Act,
filed this 42 U. S. C. 1983 suit against petitioner, the director of the
state child support agency, claiming, among other things, that they
properly applied for child support services; that, despite their good
faith efforts to cooperate, the agency never took adequate steps to
obtain child support payments for them; that these omissions were
largely attributable to staff shortages and other structural defects in
the State's program; and that these systemic failures violated their
individual rights under Title IV-D to have all mandated services
delivered in substantial compliance with the title and its implement-
ing regulations. They requested broad relief, including a declaratory
judgment that the Arizona program's operation violates Title IV-D
provisions creating rights in them that are enforceable through a
1983 action, and an injunction requiring the director to achieve
substantial compliance with Title IV-D throughout all programmatic
operations. The District Court granted summary judgment for peti-
tioner, but the Ninth Circuit reversed. Without distinguishing among
the numerous provisions of the complex Title IV-D program or the
many rights those provisions might have created, the latter court held
that respondents had an enforceable individual right to have the State
achieve -substantial compliance- with Title IV-D. It also disagreed
with the District Court's conclusion that Congress had foreclosed
private Title IV-D enforcement actions by authorizing the Secretary
of Health and Human Services (Secretary) to audit and cut off funds
to States whose programs do not substantially comply with Title
IV-D's requirements.
Held: Title IV-D does not give individuals a federal right to force a
state agency to substantially comply with Title IV-D. Pp. 9-18.
(a) A plaintiff seeking 1983 redress must assert the violation of a
federal right, not merely of federal law. Golden State Transit Corp.
v. Los Angeles, 493 U. S. 103, 106. Three principal factors determine
whether a statutory provision creates a privately enforceable right: (1)
whether the plaintiff is an intended beneficiary of the statute; (2)
whether the plaintiff's asserted interests are not so vague and amor-
phous as to be beyond the competence of the judiciary to enforce; and
(3) whether the statute imposes a binding obligation on the State.
See, e.g., Wilder v. Virginia Hospital Assn., 496 U. S. 498, 509. Even
if a plaintiff demonstrates such a right, however, there is only a
rebuttable presumption that it is enforceable under 1983. Dismissal
is proper if Congress specifically foreclosed a 1983 remedy, Smith v.
Robinson, 468 U. S. 992, 1005, n. 9, 1003, either expressly, by forbid-
ding recourse to 1983 in the statute itself, or impliedly, by creating
a comprehensive enforcement scheme that is incompatible with indi-
vidual 1983 enforcement, Livadas v. Bradshaw, 512 U. S. 107, 133.
Pp. 9-10.
(b) Respondents have not established that Title IV-D gives them
individually enforceable federal rights. In prior cases, the Court has
been able to determine whether or not a statute created such rights
because the plaintiffs articulated, and lower courts evaluated, well-
defined claims. See, e.g., Wright v. Roanoke Redevelopment and
Housing Authority, 479 U. S. 418, 430. Here, respondents have not
identified with particularity the rights they claim, and the Ninth
Circuit has not engaged in the requisite methodical inquiry. That
court erred in apparently holding that individuals have an enforceable
right to -substantial compliance- with Title IV-D in all respects. The
statutory -substantial compliance- requirement, see, e.g., 42
U. S. C. A. 609(a)(8) (Nov. 1996 Supp.), does not give rise to individ-
ual rights; it was not intended to benefit individual children and
custodial parents, but is simply a yardstick for the Secretary to
measure the systemwide performance of a State's Title IV-D program,
allowing her to increase the frequency of audits and reduce the State's
federal grant upon a finding of substantial noncompliance. The Court
of Appeals also erred in taking a blanket approach to determining
whether Title IV-D creates rights: It is readily apparent that many
of the provisions of that multifaceted statutory scheme, including its
-substantial compliance- standard and data processing, staffing, and
organizational requirements, do not fit any of the traditional criteria
for identifying statutory rights. Although this Court does not foreclose
the possibility that some Title IV-D provisions give rise to individual
rights, the Ninth Circuit did not separate out the particular rights it
believed arise from the statutory scheme, the complaint is less than
clear in this regard, and it is not certain whether respondents sought
any relief more specific than a declaration that their -rights- were
being violated and an injunction forcing petitioner to -substantially
comply- with all of Title IV-D's provisions. This defect is best ad-
dressed by sending the case back for the District Court to construe
the complaint in the first instance, in order to determine exactly what
rights, considered in their most concrete, specific form, respondents
are asserting. Only by manageably breaking down the complaint into
specific allegations can the District Court proceed to determine wheth-
er any specific claim asserts an individual federal right. Pp. 10-15.
(c) Petitioner's argument that Title IV-D's remedial scheme is
sufficiently comprehensive to demonstrate congressional intent to
preclude 1983 suits is rejected. Petitioner does not claim that any
Title IV-D provision expressly curtails 1983 actions, and she has
failed to make the difficult showing that allowing such actions to go
forward in these circumstances would be inconsistent with Congress'
carefully tailored scheme. That scheme is far more limited than
those at issue in Middlesex County Sewerage Authority v. National
Sea Clammers Assn., 453 U. S. 1, and Smith v. Robinson, 468 U. S.
992, the only cases in which the Court has found preclusion; in
particular, Title IV-D contains no private remedy-either judicial or
administrative-through which aggrieved persons can seek redress.
The only way that Title IV-D assures that States live up to their
child support plans is through the Secretary's oversight, but the
Secretary's limited powers to audit and cut federal funding are not
comprehensive enough to foreclose 1983 liability. Pp. 15-18.
68 F. 3d 1141, vacated and remanded.
O'Connor, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. Scalia,
J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Kennedy, J., joined.