DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services
- Decided
- February 22, 1989
- Docket
- 87-154
- Status
- Published
- Jurisdiction
- Federal
Cited 4,564 timesNo negative treatment found in this library
What later courts said
- holding that state agencies have no constitutional duty to protect child from his father after receiving numerous and repeated reports of abuse — In Re the Guardianship of DMH (1999)
- holding that states have no substantive due process obligation to protect children against private violence — Sealed v. Sealed (2003)
- holding that, as a general matter, a state's "failure to protect an individual against private violence simply does not constitute a violation of the Due Process Clause" — Peter Clayton McClendon v. City of Columbia, City of Columbia James R. Carney (2002)
Each line is a later court’s own words about this case, not a summary. Read the opinion before relying on it.
How the opinion begins
[*191] Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner is a boy who was beaten and permanently injured by his father, with whom he lived. Respondents are social workers and other local officials who received complaints that petitioner was being abused by his father and had reason to believe that this was the case, but nonetheless did not act to remove petitioner from his father’s custody. Petitioner sued respondents claiming that their failure to act deprived him of his liberty in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. We hold that it did not.
I — I The facts of this case are undeniably tragic. Petitioner Joshua DeShaney was born in 1979. In 1980, a Wyoming court granted his parents a divorce and awarded custody of Joshua to his father, Randy DeShaney. The father shortly thereafter moved to Neenah, a city located in Winnebago County, Wisconsin, taking, the infant Joshua with him. There he entered into a second marriage, which also ended in divorce.
Statutes cited
Cite this
DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189 (1989)Read the full opinion
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