Latest news with #AmericansWithDisabilitiesAct
Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Jackson's dissent isn't heroic. It exposes big problem with Supreme Court.
As the Supreme Court term reaches its end, the decisions tend to become more divisive. It's a phenomenon that many court watchers suspect is a sort of burying the often unpopular lead, but the reality is that the court's nonunanimous decisions take more time to draft while the majority opinion sorts out its take and the dissent levies its rebuttals. Naturally, the more divisive cases tend to mean that tensions reveal themselves more, and the justices are more likely to take shots at each other in their majority opinions and dissents. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Justice Neil Gorsuch took some fierce swings at each other in Stanley v. City of Sanford concerning a retired firefighter who wants to sue her former employer. Cast in much of the media coverage as a "declaration of independence" or being "done playing nice," Jackson's jabs cast her as a hero. But the spat between her and Gorsuch reveals a deep divide in how they look at the role of the Supreme Court – one that's not necessarily a good thing for America. Opinion: Do you think the Supreme Court is partisan? Well you're wrong. The heated debate between Jackson and Gorsuch stemmed from a rather technical case concerning whether a retired firefighter could, under the Americans with Disabilities Act, sue her former employer for terminating her health insurance. Gorsuch's majority opinion went out of its way to address the dissent from Jackson: "Finding 'pure textualism' insufficiently pliable to secure the result they seek, they invoke the statute's 'primary purpose' and 'legislative history.' " In layman's terms, Gorsuch accused the court's most junior justice, Jackson, of ignoring the text of the statute to manufacture a decision that aligned with her desired outcome of the case – a serious charge to be levied between members of the court. 'It is imperative that we interpret statutes consistent with all relevant indicia of what Congress wanted, as best we can ascertain its intent,' Jackson wrote in her dissent. 'By 'finding' answers in ambiguous text, and not bothering to consider whether those answers align with other sources of statutory meaning, pure textualists can easily disguise their own preferences as 'textual' inevitabilities.' Jackson's response more or less turns Gorsuch's charge back on him (much like a younger sibling saying 'nuh uh'). She accused the majority of disguising their policy preferences through a strict reading of the text, ignoring outside context that does not fit their narrative. Jackson dedicated a rather long footnote to levy her criticisms of Gorsuch. Still, her complaints couldn't even muster Justice Sonia Sotomayor's approval, who signed on to large chunks of Jackson's dissent but excluded herself from the contentious footnote. The text is made all the more ridiculous considering Justice Elena Kagan, one of Jackson's frequent liberal allies, sided with the six conservatives in this case. What Jackson fails to understand is that if the Supreme Court does interpret the text of a statute to be more narrow than Congress intended, the lawmakers can follow up and clarify what they meant with new legislation. Opinion: Supreme Court takes on birthright citizenship – but that's not the real case Judges should not be expected to do the legwork of deciphering what Congress meant at every turn. Due to the significant ambiguity there is in deciphering the intent of the entire legislative branch, doing so is inevitably going to result in accusations of legislating from the bench. Judges should stick to the text of statutes whenever possible, and if their determination of what the text means is out of step with what Congress intended, then Congress can pass legislation correcting the original language of a statute. Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store. Legislation is not frozen in time. Congress has the ability to clarify the meanings of old statutes that are somehow ambiguous. Often, they simply lack the will. However, this doesn't mean that the judicial branch needs to take on more of its responsibilities. We've already seen the failures of that line of thinking with regard to universal injunctions blocking executive action. Jackson's gripes with her colleagues are misplaced; they should be levied against Congress for its production of ambiguous statutes and refusal to clarify their meaning. Congress' laziness, or maybe apathy toward meaningful legislation, cannot be solved through judges usurping the lawmaking abilities. Doing so will only exacerbate the problem, with Congress refusing to step in as the judicial branch corrects its mistakes. In this case, Gorsuch got it right, and an ideologically diverse coalition of justices agreed with him. Jackson is the one out of step. Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science. You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: SCOTUS term ends as infighting between justices ramps up | Opinion
Yahoo
a day ago
- Health
- Yahoo
In unanimous decision, Supreme Court makes it easier for students with disabilities to sue schools
WASHINGTON − A unanimous Supreme Court on June 12 made it easier for families to use the Americans with Disabilities Act to sue schools for damages, ruling a lower court used too tough a standard to dismiss a lawsuit from a student with a rare form of epilepsy. Writing for the court, Chief Justice John Roberts said the student's family did not have to show the school acted in 'bad faith or gross misjudgment." That's more difficult to prove than the 'deliberate indifference' standard courts often use when weighing other types of disability discrimination claims. The court also rejected an argument from the school that would have raised the bar for all victims of disability discrimination rather than lowered it for educational instruction claims. The case, A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools, was closely watched by disability rights groups. They say the courts have created a 'nearly insurmountable barrier' for schoolchildren and their families. But schools across the country worry that making lawsuits easier to win will create a more adversarial relationship between parents and schools in the difficult negotiations needed to balance a student's needs with a school's limited resources. In this case, Gina and Aaron Tharpe said they spent years asking Osseo Area School District to accommodate their daughter's severe cognitive impairment and rare form of epilepsy called Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome. Her seizures are so frequent in the morning that she can't attend school before noon. A previous school in Tennessee shifted Ava's school day so it started in the afternoon and ended with evening instruction at home. But the Tharpes say the Minnesota school system, where she is currently enrolled, refused to provide the same adjustment. As a result, she received only 4.25 hours of instruction a day, about two-thirds of what nondisabled students received. When the Tharpes sued under the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, lower courts dismissed the case. More: For students with disabilities, what's the difference between IEPs and 504 plans? Judges on the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said their hands were tied because of a 1982 circuit decision – Monahan v. Nebraska − that said school officials need to have acted with 'bad faith or gross misjudgment' for suits to go forward involving educational services for children with disabilities. The Tharpes 'may have established a genuine dispute about whether the district was negligent or even deliberately indifferent, but under Monahan, that's just not enough,' the appeals court said. More: Will a Texas-led legal fight over gender dysphoria threaten disabled student protections? Hundreds of district court decisions across the country have been litigated under that standard, with most of them ending in a loss for the families, according to the Tharpes' attorneys. The Justice Department backed the Tharpes' argument that there should not be a different standard for disability discrimination cases involving education. The school district's attorneys pushed the court to apply a tougher standard for all cases rather than lower the bar for cases like Ava's. But because the school district didn't make that argument until after the court agreed to take the case, the justices said they could not consider it. 'We will not entertain the District's invitation to inject into this case significant issues that have not been fully presented,' Roberts wrote for the court. Two justices said the school district raised an important issue that the court should consider in a future case. 'Whether federal courts are applying the correct legal standard is an issue of national importance, and the District has raised serious arguments that the prevailing standards are incorrect,' Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion that was joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. 'That these issues are consequential is all the more reason to wait for a case in which they are squarely before us and we have the benefit of adversarial briefing.' Ava's lawyers had warned that the school's argument threatened 'to eviscerate protections for every American who endures disability discrimination – and quite possibly other kinds of discrimination too.' Roman Martinez, who represented the Tharpes, said the court's decision "gets the law exactly right, and it will help protect the reasonable accommodations needed to ensure equal opportunity for all." 'We are thrilled for Ava and her family," Martinez said in a statement. The court's action revives, but does not settle, the Tharpes' lawsuit. Attorneys for the district said the school had not shown 'deliberate indifference," the lower standard. Although the school declined to provide after-school support at Ava's home, officials said they offered other measures to accommodate her needs while 'effectively utilizing scarce resources shared among all students, including others with disabilities.' This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court makes it easier to sue schools in disability cases
CBS News
20-06-2025
- Health
- CBS News
Firefighter forced to retire early due to Parkinson's cannot sue Florida city for health benefits discrimination, U.S. Supreme Court rules
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled against a firefighter who retired early because of Parkinson's disease and alleged the city of Sanford violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by limiting a health-insurance subsidy. Justices upheld a decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the lawsuit filed by Karyn Stanley, a fire-department lieutenant who retired in 2018 at age 47 because of the effects of the disease. The dispute stemmed from Stanley losing a health-insurance subsidy two years after she retired and involved questions about whether the city violated part of the Americans with Disabilities Act aimed at preventing discrimination in employment. Friday's main opinion, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, focused heavily on wording in the law that bars discrimination against a "qualified individual on the basis of disability." The opinion said the definition of a "qualified individual" in what is known as Title I of the law applied only to current employees or people seeking jobs. Gorsuch wrote that the law "protects people, not benefits, from discrimination. And the statute also tells us who those people are: qualified individuals, those who hold or seek a job at the time of the defendant's alleged discrimination." But Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson wrote a blistering dissent, arguing the law "says nothing — zero — about the preemployment or postemployment timing of an act of disability discrimination." "Disabled Americans who have retired from the workforce simply want to enjoy the fruits of their labor free from discrimination," she wrote. "Congress plainly protected their right to do so when it crafted Title I. Yet, the Court ignores that right today." A civil servant demanding better post-retirement health benefits Stanley began working as a firefighter for the city in 1999 but was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2016. When Stanley was hired in 1999, the city provided health-insurance subsidies up to age 65 for firefighters who retired after 25 years of service or who retired because of disabilities, according to court documents. The city changed the policy in 2003 to scale back the benefit to two years for employees who retired early because of disabilities. As a result, Stanley received the subsidy for two years after she retired, rather than up to age 65. A brief filed in the case said the end of the subsidy resulted in Stanley facing an additional $1,000 a month in health-insurance costs. Stanley challenged the city in court, but a U.S. district judge dismissed the Americans with Disabilities Act claim. A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision, saying Stanley, as a former employee, could not sue under Title I of the law. The Biden administration and organizations such as the AFL-CIO, the International Association of Fire Fighters and AARP filed briefs at the Supreme Court backing Stanley. Meanwhile, groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Counties and the National League of Cities supported Sanford in briefs. Gorsuch was joined Friday in parts of his opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. He was joined in another part by Alito, Kagan and Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Sotomayor joined part of Jackson's dissent.
Yahoo
17-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Veteran can move forward with ADA lawsuit alleging PTSD-related firing
This story was originally published on HR Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily HR Dive newsletter. A federal court ruled June 9 that nuclear power plant operator Constellation Energy Generation must face a former employee's lawsuit alleging it violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by fabricating reasons to deny him unescorted facility access because of his PTSD. It fired him after revoking his access. According to court documents in Thomas v. Constellation Energy Generation, LLC, the employee, who worked for the company from 2006 through 2023, was a senior site emergency preparedness specialist at a Constellation facility in Byron, Illinois. In that position, he was required by Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations to have unescorted access authorization to the facility and undergo periodic evaluations to maintain his access, court records said. The employee alleged that during a requalification interview, he disclosed that a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs doctor had diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder in 2019, and the VA gave him a 70% disability rating due to the diagnosis. He did not disclose this on his medical questionnaire but explained to an access supervisor that his VA disability attorney advised him he didn't need to report it, the complaint alleged. The employee also allegedly submitted medical documentation from the VA that he wasn't a threat to himself or anyone else and could perform his assigned job duties with no restrictions. However, during a follow-up interview, a medical review officer allegedly called him a liar and threatened that she wasn't 'going to believe anything you tell me in this interview.' The MRO also repeatedly said she knew he was lying because, according to her, if he 'truly had a 70% rating for PTSD, then [he] would be completely debilitated,' the lawsuit alleged. Constellation subsequently withdrew the employee's authorization for unescorted access and terminated him because he no longer had the NRC-required access. He sued it for violating the ADA. In particular, the complaint alleged the MRO's accusations were based on her biases against his PTSD, 'as none of the medical documentation in her possession could have possibly supported her accusations.' The employee also asserted that the MRO's notes, as well as those of the access supervisor, grossly mischaracterized what was discussed, took statements completely out of context and included 'utter fabrications.' The court refused to dismiss the lawsuit. It rejected Constellation's assertion the employee failed to state a cause of action, including because, according to Constellation, the employee conceded in his allegations that absent unescorted access, he was legally prohibited from working at the plant. However, 'this argument relies on the faulty premise that [the plaintiff's] unescorted access denial was legitimate and nondiscriminatory,' the court said. And that wasn't what he alleged, the court pointed out. Rather, the employee claimed Constellation unlawfully denied him unescorted access because of his PTSD and fired him based on its discriminatory denial of access, the court explained. For instance, the employee did not allege the MRO determined his PTSD prevented him from safely and competently doing his work or that he was untrustworthy or unreliable due to substance abuse, the court noted. Instead, he alleged the MRO and the access supervisor 'misconstrued his interviews to raise trustworthiness and reliability concerns as a pretext for disability discrimination,' the court said. An EEOC guidance reminds employers that it's illegal to refuse to hire a military veteran solely because the veteran has PTSD, was previously diagnosed with PTSD, or because the employer assumes the veteran has PTSD. Similarly, employers may not refuse to hire a veteran based on assumptions about a veteran's ability to do the job because the veteran has a disability rating from the VA, which uses different standards than the ADA in determining disability. Recommended Reading EEOC to take another swing at pay data collection, regulatory agenda shows
Bloomberg
12-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Amazon's Return-to-Office Mandate Sparks Disability Complaints
Inc. 's hard-line stance on getting disabled employees to return to the office has sparked a backlash, with workers alleging the company is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as their rights to collectively bargain. At least two employees have filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the National Labor Relations Board, federal agencies that regulate working conditions. One of the workers said they provided the EEOC with a list of 18 'similarly situated' employees to emphasize that their experience isn't isolated and to help federal regulators with a possible investigation.
