Opinion
No. 02 C 4956
September 5, 2002
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Plaintiff moves for leave to appeal in forma pauperis and, by various motions, for reconsideration of this court's prior decisions. Those motions are denied.
If we believe we properly denied leave to proceed in forma pauperis before this court, then we should deny the petition to so proceed on appeal. And we believe we properly denied leave. Plaintiff cites Smith v. Organization of Foster Families for Equality Reform, 431 u.s. 816 (1977), for the proposition that she has a clearly established right to due process. But a majority of the Supreme Court there only assumed, but did not hold, that foster parents in New York had a liberty interest in their status, thus triggering due process rights, and then held that New York afforded adequate due process procedures. The Seventh Circuit in Procopio v. Johnson, 994 F.2d 325 (7th Cir. 1993), held that the Illinois statutes did not create a liberty interest in the foster family relationship, and we are bound by that ruling. Plaintiff may possibly be correct that her biological status as grandmother may create a liberty interest, but that is by no means a clearly established constitutional right. Accordingly, the state actors are shielded from personal liability by the doctrine of qualified immunity, a doctrine recently recognized in somewhat related circumstances in Doyle v. Camelot Care Centers. Inc., No. 01-2098 and No. 01-2359, ___ F.3d ___ (7th Cir. 2002).