Blessing v. Freestone, 520 U.S. 329, 18 (1997)

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346

BLESSING v. FREESTONE

Opinion of the Court

through the first $50 of each payment, to which she was purportedly entitled under the pre-1996 version of § 657(b)(1). App. 13 (Complaint ¶ 48). Although § 657 may give her a federal right to receive a specified portion of the money collected on her behalf by Arizona, she did not explicitly request such relief in the complaint.

In any event, it is not at all apparent that respondents sought any relief more specific than a declaration that their "rights" were being violated and an injunction forcing Arizona's child support agency to "substantially comply" with all of the provisions of Title IV-D. We think that this defect is best addressed 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 whether any specific claim asserts an individual federal right.

B

Because we leave open the possibility that Title IV-D may give rise to some individually enforceable rights, we pause to consider petitioner's final argument that no remand is warranted because the statute contains "a remedial scheme that is 'sufficiently comprehensive . . . to demonstrate congressional intent to preclude the remedy of suits under § 1983.' " Wilder, 496 U. S., at 521 (quoting Middlesex County Sewerage Authority v. National Sea Clammers Assn., 453 U. S. 1, 20 (1981)). Because petitioner does not claim that any provision of Title IV-D expressly curtails § 1983 actions, she must make the difficult showing that allowing § 1983 actions to go forward in these circumstances "would be inconsistent with Congress' carefully tailored scheme." Golden State, 493 U. S., at 107 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

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