## Facts

- Joshua DeShaney, a minor living in Winnebago County, Wisconsin, resided in the custody of his father.
- County social services received multiple reports that Joshua was being physically abused by his father.
- Social workers investigated and monitored the situation and took some steps intended to protect Joshua, but did not remove him from his father’s custody.
- In 1984, Joshua’s father severely beat him, causing a coma and permanent brain damage.
- Joshua (through a guardian) and his mother sued the county department and individual social workers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging a substantive due process violation for failing to protect Joshua’s bodily integrity from his father’s violence.

## Issues

1. Whether a state agency’s failure to protect a child from private violence, despite notice and involvement, violates the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause and is actionable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
2. Whether a “special relationship” triggering an affirmative constitutional duty to protect arises from social services’ knowledge, investigation, monitoring, and stated intent to help when the child remains in a parent’s custody.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment for the county department and social workers in a 6–3 decision authored by Chief Justice Rehnquist.
- The Court held that the Due Process Clause did not require the State to protect Joshua from his father’s private violence.
- The Court rejected the claim that the agency’s involvement created a constitutional “special relationship,” because the State had not taken Joshua into custody or otherwise restrained his liberty.
- The dissent would have found constitutional responsibility based on the State’s sustained involvement and its effect on other potential sources of protection.

## Legal Principles

- The Due Process Clause is primarily a limit on state action; it generally does not impose an affirmative duty on the State to protect individuals from harm inflicted by private actors.
- An affirmative constitutional duty to protect may arise when the State restrains an individual’s liberty through custody or similar control (e.g., imprisonment or involuntary commitment), making the person dependent on the State for basic safety.
- State knowledge of danger, investigation, monitoring, or expressions of intent to help, without custody or comparable restraint, does not by itself create a constitutional duty to protect.
- A § 1983 claim based on failure to protect from private violence requires a constitutional deprivation attributable to the State, not merely negligent or even seriously deficient performance of protective services.

## Conclusion

The Court held that social services’ failure to remove a child from an abusive parent, even after repeated notice and involvement, does not violate substantive due process because the Constitution generally does not require the State to protect individuals from private violence absent a custodial or similar restraint-based relationship.


DeShaney v. Winnebago Cnty. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189 (1989)