Subject: Supreme Court decides Garrett case: Sovereign Immunity stops the ADA
From: James Levy (jrlevy@u.washington.edu)
Date: Wed Feb 21 2001 - 10:35:59 PST
I will provide analysis on and the implications of Garrett later today, but
I wanted the list to have access to the opinion and at least a news story on
the matter first.
Opinion: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/00pdf/99-1240.pdf
>From the New York Times:
Court Curbs State Workers' Options With Disability Law
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 — The Supreme Court continued its trend of limiting the
power of the federal government over the states today as it curbed the
effects of a law protecting people with disabilities.
In a 5-to-4 ruling, the justices ruled that state workers cannot file
employment-discrimination suits against their employers under the Americans
With Disabilities Act of 1990. The court's majority, making a strong
statement in support of state sovereignty, held that Congress went beyond
its authority when it let state workers file such claims.
Today's ruling, the biggest federalism decision of the court's term, affects
only state employees, not disabled workers of private companies, but is
certain to disappoint advocates for the rights of the disabled. Of more
profound importance, however, is what the ruling says about Congressional
authority over the states.
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for the majority and was joined by
Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and
Clarence Thomas.
The dissenting opinion was by Justice Stephen G. Breyer, joined by Justices
John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The lineups of majority and dissenters were the same as in several recent
cases that have nibbled at federal power over the states.
The majority today decided that the 1990 law does not get around the
Eleventh Amendment, which gives the states broad protection against damage
suits unless there has been a valid abrogation, or repeal, of that
constitutional protection. A syllabus released with the ruling declared
that, while fear and negative attitudes often fuel biases toward disabled
people, "their presence alone does not a constitutional violation make."
Thus, the majority reasoned, the states cannot be compelled under the
equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to make special
accommodations for disabled workers. Rather, the syllabus went on, the
states "could quite hardheadedly — and perhaps hardheartedly — hold to
job-qualification requirements which do not make allowance for the disabled.
If special accommodations for the disabled are to be required, they have to
come from positive law and not through the Equal Protection Clause."
The case decided today, Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v.
Garrett, No. 99-1240, was argued last before the justices on Oct. 11, 2000.
It concerns two suits brought against Alabama by employees accusing state
agencies of discrimination because of medical problems — breast cancer in
the case of Patricia Garrett and respiratory ailments in the case of Milton
Ash.
Ms. Garrett was a nurse at the University of Alabama who contended that she
was forced into a lower-paying job when she returned to work after a
four-month leave for treatment. Mr. Ash was a security guard for a state
agency who contended that his asthma was aggravated by his employer's
failure, among other things, to enforce a no-smoking policy.
In his dissent, Justice Breyer wrote, "The powerful evidence of
discriminatory treatment throughout society in general, including
discrimination by private persons and local governments, implicates state
governments as well, for state agencies form part of that same larger
society."
The majority and dissenting opinions, as well as an opinion by Justice
Kennedy concurring with the majority, can be read on the court's Web site:
www.supremecourtus.gov.
Today's majority overturned a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals
for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, which in turn had overruled a federal
district court.
The majority today emphasized that there are instances in which Congress can
impose its will on the states. It cited the Voting Rights Act of 1965. "In
that act, Congress documented a marked pattern of unconstitutional action by
the states," the majority wrote today. "State officials, Congress found,
routinely applied voting tests in order to exclude African-American citizens
from registering to vote....The contrast between this kind of evidence, and
the evidence that Congress considered in the present case, is stark."
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James R. Levy, J.D.
Research Associate
Center for Technology and Disability Studies
University of Washington
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