High Court Narrows Disabilities Law
By GINA HOLLAND The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court barred Americans from seeking punitive
damages from cities and government boards that refuse to build wheelchair ramps
and make other accommodations for the disabled.
Justices on Monday again narrowed a landmark disabilities law that forbids
discrimination against the disabled at work and other places.
The court said boards and agencies that accept federal money can not be sued for
punitive damages.
The case of a paraplegic man injured while being taken to jail in Kansas City,
Mo., was one of four cases the justices reviewed this year involving the 1990
Americans with Disabilities Act. All four unsuccessful suits were brought by
people with disabilities.
The Supreme Court ruled last year that state workers cannot use the ADA to win
money damages for on-the-job discrimination. The court held that the
disability-rights law does not trump states' constitutional immunity against
being sued for damages in federal courts.
This decision shields other agencies, such as local parks and school boards.
Jeffrey Gorman, who uses a wheelchair, was injured while being taken to jail in
a van after his arrest for trespassing at a country-western bar called Guitar
and Cadillacs. He claims officers removed him from his wheelchair, propped him
on a bench in the van, and tied him with his belt. During the trip to the jail,
he fell and injured his shoulder and back.
Kansas City did not contest the actual and compensatory damages that a jury
ordered it to pay for medical costs and lost income, about $1 million. But the
city did challenge the $1.2 million punitive damage award to Gorman.
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, said that adding punitive damages
in cases like this ``could well be disastrous.'' He said recipients of federal
funds probably would not agree ``to exposure to such unorthodox and
indeterminate liability.''
Besides Gorman, the court this year also ruled against an assembly line worker
with carpal tunnel syndrome, an airline baggage handler with a back injury and a
refinery worker with liver disease.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has said the court's current term, which is expected
to end next week, probably will be remembered as the ``disabilities act term''
for the number of cases dealing with the civil rights law.
Advocates for the disabled claim some cities are ignoring the law because courts
have not forced them to pay for violations.
The court decided 9-0 to overturn a decision by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals in St. Louis, which ruled that Gorman was entitled to punitive damages.
But Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer said the
decision was too broadly written.
The ADA is probably best known for mandating wheelchair ramps and
handicapped-equipped bathrooms in public buildings. The law forbids
discrimination against the disabled at work and elsewhere.
In the other ADA decisions this year, the court made it more difficult for
workers to demand special treatment when they suffer partial physical
disabilities such as carpal tunnel syndrome, that companies' seniority policies
almost always trump the demands of disabled employees, and that disabled people
cannot demand jobs that would threaten their lives or health.
The case is Barnes v. Gorman, 01-682.
This "Mental Health E-News" posting is a service of the New York
Ass'n of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services, a statewide coalition of people
who use and/or provide community mental health services dedicated to improving
services and social conditions for people with psychiatric disabilities by
promoting their recovery, rehabilitation and rights.
To join our list, e-mail us your request and, where
appropriate, the name of your organization to
NYAPRS@aol.com.
Save these dates!
September 10 - 13, 2002
NYAPRS 20th Annual Conference Celebration
'Now More Than Ever: Hope, Healing and Recovery'
at the Nevele Grande Resort, Ellenville New York
contact: Mary McLaughlin, NYAPRS
1 Columbia Place Albany, NY 12207
(518) 436-0008; fax: (518) 436-0044
