deLEIRIS v. Scott

642 F. Supp. 1552

Daniel deLEIRIS and Betsy deLeiris, individually and as parents and next friends of Sarah deLeiris, a minor; Ellen Weaver-Paquette and Joseph E. Paquette, Jr., individually and as parents and next friends of Jonathan Mason Paquette, a minor; Deborah A. Mycroft and Walter J. Mycroft III, individually and as parents and next friends of Kirstin Ann Mycroft, a minor; Becky Bessette and John Bessette, individually and as parents and next friends of Evan Albert Bessette, a minor; Kathy Gardiner and Gary K. Gardiner, individually and as parents and next friends of Joshua Tex Gardiner, a minor; Susan Closter-Godoy and Carlos Godoy, individually and as parents and next friends of Elizabeth C. Godoy, a minor; and Daniel deLeiris, Betsy deLeiris, Ellen Weaver-Paquette, Joseph E. Paquette, Jr., Deborah A. Mycroft, Walter J. Mycroft III, Becky Bessette, John Bessette, Kathy Gardiner, Gary K. Gardiner, Susan Closter-Godoy, and Carlos Godoy (each individually, and all as putative representatives of a proposed class consisting of all persons obligated to furnish information relative to the birth of children in the State of Rhode Island from August 29, 1983 to June 28, 1985), Plaintiffs, v. H. Denman SCOTT, M.D., in his capacity as Director of the Department of Health of the State of Rhode Island; Edward J. Martin, in his capacity as Registrar of Vital Statistics of the State of Rhode Island; Arlene Violet, in her capacity as Attorney General of the State of Rhode Island; and the State of Rhode Island, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 85-0181-S.

United States District Court, D. Rhode Island.

September 10, 1986.

Kelly & Scott, Thomas W. Kelly, Newport, R.I., for plaintiffs.

Maureen A. Hobson, Atty., R.I. Dept. of Health, Arlene Violet, Atty. Gen., Thom Martin, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Providence, R.I., for defendants.

OPINION AND ORDER

SELYA, District Judge.

At bottom, this litigation protests what the plaintiffs view as a heavyhanded attempt by the sovereign to infringe the birthrights of newborn children in order to season an ill-considered mess of statistical pottage. The defendants demur. They see themselves as engaged in the routine collection of data for the public good, and unfairly beleaguered by the plaintiffs in the bargain. It falls to the court to outline the dimensions of the litigation and to determine who is harrassing whom.

Since its inception on April 1, 1985, the scope of this suit has been expanded and the initial statement of claim has evolved into a third amended complaint (complaint). The plaintiffs, whose identity is faithfully reflected in the case caption, comprise six married couples resident in Rhode Island. They sue individually, as parents, and on behalf of their respective newborn children, complaining of certain actions of the state of Rhode Island in demanding information and data from them ancillary to the issuance of birth certificates. They seek certification of a class, Fed.R.Civ.P. 23, a declaration that certain Rhode Island statutes and implementing regulations are offensive to the federal Constitution, injunctive redress of divers kinds, compensatory damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, an award of counsel fees in pursuance of 42 U.S.C. § 1988, and assorted other relief.

Each female plaintiff gave birth during late 1983 or 1984. The progeny in question (all of whom were born in Rhode Island) and their respective dates of birth, are as follows:

1. Jonathan M. Paquette:    December 9, 1983
2. Joshua T. Gardiner:      April 17, 1984
3. Elizabeth C. Godoy:      September 11, 1984
4. Evan A. Bessette:        September 11, 1984
5. Kristin A. Mycroft:      October 27, 1984
6. Sarah deLeiris:          October 27, 1984

There are four defendants: the state of Rhode Island and a trio of state officials (the director of health, the registrar of vital statistics, and the attorney general). Inasmuch as all of the individual defendants have been sued only in their official capacities, the court will from time to time refer to the defendants in the aggregate as "the state." Jurisdiction is premised on the existence of federal questions. 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1343.

In the fall of 1985 and thereafter, the court held a number of conferences with counsel. As a result of agreements reached during those sessions, the court entered an order on December 4, 1985 bifurcating the issues, so that liability would be addressed first and the questions of class certification, damages, classwide relief, and the like would be reserved to a later date. With the concurrence of all parties, the court undertook to decide the liability phase, including the constitutional issues which had been raised, on a stipulated record as a case stated under Fed.R. Civ.P. 52(a). A briefing schedule was established and thereafter enlarged by a supplemental order entered on March 12, 1986. Compendious briefs have been filed by the parties and oral argument was entertained on June 16, 1986. Decision was reserved.

I.

As the essential facts are not in dispute, they are susceptible of succinct summarization. This litigation had its origins in certain administrative sequellae to the birth of the plaintiffs' children. Shortly after each happy event, the newborn's parents received a live birth worksheet (Worksheet) from the state department of health (Department). The top portion of the Worksheet (the propriety of which the plaintiffs do not challenge) required the parents to supply the child's name and sex, the date, time and location of birth, and the parents' names, ages, and addresses. All of the plaintiffs, however, refused to complete the lower portion of the Worksheet. Labelled "information for medical and health use only," that segment of the Worksheet sought to ferret out the following information:

a. race of mother;

b. race of father;

c. highest grade of education completed by father;

d. how many other children born alive are now living;

e. how many other children born alive are now dead;

f. date of last live birth;

g. number born dead before 20 weeks gestation (miscarriages, stillbirths, or abortions);

h. number born dead after 20 weeks gestation (miscarriages, stillbirths, or abortions);

i. date of last miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion;

j. date last menstrual period began;

k. month in which pregnancy prenatal care began;

l. number of prenatal visits;

m. highest grade of education completed by mother,

n. birth weight of child;

o. marital status of mother at conception and/or delivery.

The Worksheet has been in continuous use in the state for more than fifteen years. It is patterned after the sample live birth worksheet issued by the National Center for Health Statistics of the United States Department of Health and Human Services as a guideline for implementing birth registration systems in the United States. Nevertheless, the plaintiffs regarded it as an impermissible intrusion into essentially private matters; they contend that the state's nose cannot be poked into the delivery room, and into the parents' lives, with such impunity.

After the plaintiffs refused to complete the confidential (lower) portion of the Worksheet, they each received a letter from defendant Martin, acting in his capacity as the state's registrar of vital statistics (Registrar).¹ This first letter stated in part:

The information on this form is required to be entered on the birth certificate by Rhode Island law. Your child's birth certificate will not be acceptable for registration until all the missing items have been completed, or until their omission has been satisfactorily accounted for.

The letter also described the supposed importance of the informational request and the confidentiality which presumably attached to data supplied in response to the inquiries posed in the bottom portion of the Worksheet. The mailed fist was not completely sheathed, however, as the Registrar's missive went on to observe that:

If you return the completed form ..., the birth certificate can then be registered. If you do not wish to complete any or all the items, please inform me in writing of your reasons for refusing the information. Upon receipt, your statement will be reviewed and, if it satisfactorily accounts for the omission of the items, the birth certificate can then be registered. If your statement does not satisfactorily account for the omission of the items, you will be notified by registered mail within 10 calendar days....

The parties agree that, during the period at issue, this sort of letter was used as a matter of course to notify parents that their Worksheets were incomplete. (Although the plaintiffs all received such correspondence, it was by no means limited to them; from October 1984 through February 1985, for example, approximately thirty such letters were posted to different sets of parents.) The initial letter plainly implied that, if the information was not furnished (or its absence "satisfactorily accounted for"), the child's birth would not be registered, that is, no birth certificate would issue.

The stipulated record also includes a second letter to Closter-Godoy, dated October 29, 1984, which the parties acknowledge is representative of the follow-on letter sent to parents who, after receipt of the Registrar's first billet-doux, persisted in their refusal to complete the form. The second letter indicated that the information was to be used for "public health statistical purposes" and kept "strictly confidential," and that "the data on marital status has legal significance," in accordance with a specified state statute. Indeed, this missive purported to quote chapter and verse in setting forth the legal bases upon which the Registrar's demand was premised. The penultimate paragraph of this letter was virtually identical to that contained in the prototypical first letter, quoted at length ante. The implied threat (of nonregistration) was likewise a constant. The damoclean sword was visibly poised.

The bullying tone of this...