The proposed rule would increase in the minimum salary threshold for white-collar overtime exemptions to an annual amount of $55,068. The Arc supports overtime for these workers but urged the Labor Department to work with its agency partners to ensure states increase the necessary funds to maintain access to Medicaid home and community-based services (HCBS).
Filed: September 29, 2023
Court: Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals
Overview: Amicus brief explaining that children with disabilities must have access to education in their neighborhood schools.
Excerpt: “The ruling below is flatly inconsistent with the IDEA and case law interpreting its least restrictive environment (LRE) mandate. Congress has made clear through IDEA (in all its iterations over the past five decades) that one of its overriding priorities was giving students with disabilities access to the general education curriculum and education in the regular classroom to the maximum extent possible. Congress enacted IDEA, an “ambitious piece of legislation,” in response to the serious problem that a “majority of handicapped children in the United States were either totally excluded from schools or [were] sitting idly in regular classrooms awaiting the time when they were old enough to drop out.” Endrew F. v. Douglas Cnty. Sch. Dist. RE-1, 580 U.S. 386, 397 (2017) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)… IDEA’s mandates are not empty aspirations: decades of scientifically based research demonstrates that children with disabilities achieve considerably more educational benefit from placement in general education classes with access to the general education curriculum through supplementary aids and services than from placement in special education classrooms or schools with limited access or no access to their age-appropriate non-disabled peers or general education curriculum.”
Case Documents
Filed: August 29, 2023
Court: Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
Overview: Amicus brief in a death penalty case filed to prevent a man with an intellectual disability from facing execution.
Excerpt: “Relying on stereotypes or lay assumptions about what a person with ID “must” look like, or what people with ID “cannot” do, rather than applying clinical standards for assessment and diagnosis may result in an unreasonable (and invalid) interpretation of the diagnostic facts in an Atkins evaluation. See, e.g., Brumfield v. Cain, 576 U.S. 305, 312-320 (2015) (finding an unreasonable interpretation of the facts where a state court abandoned clinical standards in determining that an individual was ineligible for an Atkins adjudication). In this context, a clinically invalid assessment risks execution of an individual with ID, a clear Constitutional violation.”
Case Documents
The Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) Relief Act of 2023 was introduced in Congress by Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) and Representative Debbie Dingell (D-MI). The bill would provide two years of additional Medicaid funds to improve access to HCBS by increasing direct care worker pay and benefits; decrease the number of people on waiting lists for HCBS; and pay for assistive technologies, staffing, and other costs that facilitate community integration.
Filed: August 25, 2023
Court: Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals
Overview: Amicus brief filed explaining that people with disabilities, including people who identify as having gender dysphoria, are not required to show that their exact disability is well-settled across the courts and are entitled to compensatory damages for emotional distress under Title II of the ADA.
Excerpt: “[T]he court erroneously posited that a defendant can be shielded from liability for damages for intentional discrimination based on a contention that one of the elements of the plaintiff’s claim—here, whether the Plaintiff was legally disabled—was unsettled. If permitted to stand, the district court’s analysis will allow entities free rein to discriminate unless and until all courts agree a condition is a covered disability. This will severely weaken enforcement of the ADA… In Cummings, the Supreme Court addressed the very limited question of whether emotional distress damages are available under Section 504 and Section 1557 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, 42 U.S.C. § 18116 (“Section 1557″)… The expansion of Cummings’ bar on emotional distress damages to Title II of the ADA would eliminate an essential remedy that Congress intended to make available to victims of disability discrimination when the ADA was enacted.”
Case Documents
Filed: August 9, 2023
Court: Supreme Court of the United States
Overview: Amicus brief filed in case before the Supreme Court that will decide whether testers – disabled people who investigate compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) – have the ability to sue businesses for discrimination when their rights under that law are violated.
Excerpt: “Under the Reservation Rule, information about hotel accessibility features must be posted on hotel websites. 28 C.F.R. § 36.302(e)(1). Unfortunately, despite the 1990 enactment of the ADA and 2010 promulgation of the Reservation Rule, people with disabilities regularly encounter inaccurate or incomplete information, or no information at all, when they attempt to ascertain a hotel’s accessibility features online. The message these individuals receive during these encounters is that their patronage is less valuable and desirable than the patronage of nondisabled guests because the public accommodation did not consider disabled people among its potential customers…By making the apparently advantageous business decision to share information about its hotels with a much larger audience over the Internet, while simultaneously failing to provide the accessibility information that disabled members of that audience need in order to be treated equally…Acheson is discriminating against every disabled person who encounters that noncompliant online reservations service. Each of these individuals— interacting with this noncompliant reservations service — could suffer their own concrete and particularized injury: the dignitary harm of disregard and erasure that Title III was enacted to prevent.”
Case Documents
Disability Antidiscrimination Law Scholars Amicus Brief
Disability Rights Groups Amicus Brief
Press Release
Amicus Brief Filed in U.S. Supreme Court Case Emphasizes Importance of Testers to ADA Enforcement
Related Media
Disability Scoop: Disability Advocates Urge Supreme Court Not to Limit ADA Protections
USA Today: ‘Sleeping in my car.’ This Supreme Court Case Could Change How Disabled Americans Book Hotel Rooms
Slate: The Americans With Disabilities Act Is Under Threat at the Supreme Court
The Arc submitted a comment on the proposed rule to streamline the parental consent process when billing Medicaid for services received in school. The Arc’s comments emphasized the experience of some families being denied outside services when Medicaid was billed for school services.
The proposed “Ensuring Access to Medicaid Services” rule would create new requirements for state programs to improve access to care, quality, and health outcomes and better address health equity issues in the Medicaid program. The Arc submitted detailed comments on the proposal, particularly related to access to home and community-based services (HCBS).
The Arc submitted comments for a rule that would advance workers rights in the AbilityOne program. The Arc mentioned concerns over the potential negative impact on nonprofit agencies providing quality jobs. The Arc recommends aligning the rule with the 898 Panel’s recommendations to mitigate these risks.
Filed: April 21, 2023
Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit
Overview: Amicus brief to safeguard parental involvement in the IEP process and ensure children have access to a full school day as part of a free and appropriate education.
Excerpt: “…when a school district designs a program and placement without considering the student’s actual needs and parental input, it violates IDEA…Courts have recognized that shortening school days for IDEA-eligible children based on administrative convenience rather than individual student needs can cause substantive harm…IDEA’s procedural safeguards, especially the right to meaningful parental participation, exist to ensure the delivery of meaningful educational benefit to all children with disabilities. Because of Osseo’s undisputed failure to comply with IDEA’s procedural mandates, A.J.T. did not receive an appropriately ambitious program with challenging objectives.”
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