Doe v. Trump

/in , , , , /by Pam Katz

State: Oregon

Filed: February 6, 2020

Court: Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

Overview: This brief supports the preliminary injunction of the Presidential Proclamation on the Suspension of Entry of Immigrants Who Will Financially Burden the United States Healthcare System as discriminatory against people with disabilities. The brief argues that the Proclamation attempts to replace the multi-factor public charge test provided by Congress with a single-factor test based exclusively on whether a visa applicant has “approved” health insurance to determine if they will be a “financial burden.”

Excerpt: “The Proclamation would re-impose these discriminatory barriers, requiring immigrants to provide proof of health insurance coverage through ‘approved’ plans that are not accessible for most people with disabilities due to medical underwriting, pre-existing condition exclusions, and other requirements. The purported goal of the Proclamation is to reduce the costs of uncompensated care, yet it excludes health insurance options available to individuals with disabilities that have been shown to reduce these costs, including subsidized Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) marketplace health plans and Medicaid. The Proclamation thus acts as a de facto bar to entry for immigrants with disabilities without any rational link to its alleged purpose.”

Case Documents

Amicus Brief

In the Matter of Marian T.

/in , , , , /by Pam Katz

State: New York

Filed: December 31, 2019

Court: New York Court of Appeals

Overview: This brief argues that New York’s adoption statute requires the informed consent of adult adoptees. The lower court held that the consent of the adult adoptee is properly dispensed with where adoption would further the person’s best interests.

Excerpt: “In dispensing with Marian’s consent to her own adoption, the lower courts embraced the outdated-and discriminatory-view that adults with intellectual disability may be treated as perpetual children under the law. Despite changes in law, policy, and societal attitudes regarding the treatment of adults with intellectual disability, outmoded stereotypes of adults with intellectual disability as lacking personhood and the ability to exercise self-determination linger. The lower courts’ decisions reflect those outdated views and threaten a dangerous reversal of advances made by people with intellectual disability.”

Case Documents

Amicus Brief

Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue

/in , , , , , /by Pam Katz

State: Montana

Filed: November 15, 2019

Court: U.S. Supreme Court

Overview: The brief argues that voucher and tax-credit programs like Montana’s redirect public funds to private entities largely unbound by the federal laws that for generations have guarded the rights and futures of students with disabilities. Allowing such programs to proliferate would significantly harm students with disabilities.

Excerpt: “For nearly fifty years, children with disabilities have relied on key federal laws to ensure that they receive the education to which they are entitled and are protected from discrimination and segregation in public schools. School voucher and tax-credit programs, including the Montana program at issue in this case, risk eroding these decades of progress. They redirect public money to private schools, which often fail to offer appropriate or integrated education to students with disabilities and commonly exclude them outright. And they deplete funding for public schools, which remain bound to comply with the comprehensive federal laws ensuring that students with disabilities are properly served. In the process, more and more students with disabilities will be excluded, neglected, and segregated—precisely the harms that Congress has repeatedly acted to stop.”

Case Documents

Amicus Brief 

Related Media

Press Release: Advocacy Groups File U.S. Supreme Court Brief Warning That School Vouchers Harm Students With Disabilities

Cropp v. Larimer County

/in , , , , , , /by Pam Katz

State: Colorado

Filed: December 18, 2019

Court: Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals

Overview: The amicus brief supported Mr. Cropp’s petition for a rehearing en banc. Mr. Cropp is an individual with Alzheimer’s who was arrested after police found him wandering in his neighborhood and tackled him to the ground when he would not answer their questions. His wife came to visit him in jail and asked for an accommodation to be able to sit next to him and explain the release form he was required to fill out in order to leave the jail. Despite knowledge of Mr. Cropp’s disability, the County denied these accommodation requests without making an individualized inquiry or analysis of his communications needs. The district court granted the County’s motion for summary judgement and the Tenth Circuit affirmed.

Excerpt: “The majority’s decision undermines the requirements of Title II in two ways…First, Title II requires that public entities provide communication with disabled people that is “as effective as” communication with nondisabled people. In contrast, the majority would require disabled people to show that communication offered by a public entity was ‘wholly ineffective.’ Second, Title II requires that governmental entities give “primary consideration” to the requests of disabled people in determining the appropriate method of communication with them.”

Case Documents

Amicus Brief

Community for Permanent Supported Housing et al. v. Housing Authority of the City of Dallas

/in , , , , , /by Pam Katz

State: Texas

Filed: October 9, 2019

Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

Overview: The Arc filed an amicus brief in support of Plaintiffs’ appeal of the district court’s dismissal on ripeness grounds. The case, filed in federal district court in the Northern District of Texas in 2018, challenges the Housing Authority of the City of Dallas’s (DHA) refusal to use the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Project-Based Voucher (PBV) rent subsidy program to provide otherwise scarce affordable, independent housing opportunities for people with I/DD in the community. DHA was poised to offer such PBVs—each of which would permit a single-family house to be rented at subsidized rates to several people with I/DD who can live independently with appropriate supports—but then canceled its offering and has refused to offer any substitute, without any good reason. The lawsuit alleges that DHA’s actions violate the ADA, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the Fair Housing Act, and state law. The district court dismissed the case in April 2019 and Plaintiffs appealed to the Fifth Circuit. The amicus brief supports Plaintiffs’ request to reverse the district court’s dismissal order and let the case move forward and explains that DHA’s ongoing failure to provide access to its program (including through reasonable accommodations where necessary) deprives adults with I/DD of a critical opportunity to live in the most integrated setting appropriate in the community and creates an acute risk of homelessness and institutionalization.

Excerpt: “Title II of the ADA requires public entities to administer programs in the ‘most integrated setting appropriate to the needs of qualified individuals with disabilities,’ and Olmstead is noteworthy for its broad recognition of the rights of people with disabilities to live and receive needed services and supports in the community—as opposed to institutional settings—which has become known as the ‘integration mandate’ of the ADA. But this mandate—which also protects those who are “at risk” of institutionalization—cannot be fully realized without affordable housing opportunities in the community that are accessible to people with I/DD and enable them to live outside their family homes. For many adults with I/DD currently living in their family homes, opportunities that allow them to live in the community separate from their families are often preferable because these opportunities provide greater independence and autonomy. Additionally, living in the community separate from their families can be critical for adults with I/DD to avoid homelessness or institutionalization when a supporting family member inevitably ages and reaches a point where she or he can no longer provide shelter or support.”

Case Documents

Amicus Brief: Community for Permanent Supported Housing et al. v. Housing Authority of the City of Dallas

Related Media

Press Release: “The Arc and Partners File Amicus Brief Challenging Discriminatory Actions of Dallas Housing Authority”
Relman Colfax: “Settlement Results in More Community-Based Housing for People with Disabilities in North Texas“

Jenkins v. Alabama

/in , , , , , , /by Pam Katz

State: Alabama

Filed: September 27, 2019

Court: Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals

Overview: The brief argued that Marc Jenkins, an individual with evidence indicating possible intellectual disability on death row in Alabama, should have the opportunity to present full evidence to prove his intellectual disability claim in an Atkins hearing.

Excerpt: “A death row inmate who claims that he has intellectual disability and therefore is exempt from execution under the Eighth Amendment, pursuant to the Supreme Court’s decision in Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), should have the opportunity to develop an appropriate record in support of that claim when there is evidence of impairment that could be attributable to intellectual disability. That common-sense rule is grounded in principles of due process and fundamental fairness, taking into account the way Atkins fundamentally changed the legal context of intellectual disability evidence in capital cases. It also is grounded in clinical standards regarding the diagnosis of intellectual disability, which emphasize the importance of thorough evidence-gathering and clinical judgment.”

Case Documents

Amicus Brief: Jenkins v. Alabama

Public Charge Amicus Briefs

/in , , , , , , , , /by Pam Katz

States: California, Washington, New York, Illinois

Filed: 2019

Courts: Northern District of California, Southern District of New York, Eastern District of Washington, Northern District of Illinois

Overview: A coalition of national disability advocacy groups filed four amicus briefs in support of litigation to stop the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from implementing its new “public charge” rule. Twenty-one states–led by California, Washington, and New York–as well as Cook County, Illinois, have filed cases against the Trump Administration to block the new rule. The advocacy groups – representing tens of thousands of people with disabilities and their families across the country – claim that the new public charge rule will prevent people with disabilities from entering this country or becoming legal residents in violation of federal disability law.

Case Documents

Briefs:
California v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (District Court)
New York v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (District Court) 
Washington v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (District Court)
Cook County, Illinois v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (District Court)
California v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (Ninth Circuit)
New York v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (Second Circuit)
Washington v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (Ninth Circuit)
Cook County, Illinois v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (Seventh Circuit)

Decisions:

California v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Cook County, IL v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security

New York v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Washington v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Related Media

Press Release: The Arc Applauds Federal Injunctions Against Public Charge Rule

Press Release: Disability Advocacy Groups File Amicus Brief Opposing the Administration’s Public Charge Rule as Illegal Disability Discrimination

Press Release: Supreme Court Lifts Stay on Public Charge Rule: Implementation Will Have Chilling Impact on People with Disabilities

The Hill: Disability rights groups join challenge to ‘public charge’ rule

Undisclosed Podcast: State v. Rocky Myers – Episode 4: Of Mice and Men

/in , , , , , , , , /by Pam Katz

Through a review of Rocky Myers’ case in Alabama and a discussion with The Arc’s legal director, this episode explores the Supreme Court’s opinion in Atkins and later decisions holding that executing people with intellectual disability violates the constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Prisons as Institutions: An Overview of Challenges Facing Prisoners with I/DD and Proposed Solutions Under the ADA and Other Disability Rights Laws (University of Minnesota Impact Magazine, 2017)

/in , , , , , , , , , /by Pam Katz

Individuals with I/DD are dramatically over-represented in prisons and jails and face unique barriers. Powerful laws exist to protect them, but prisoners need accessible resources to assist them in advocating for their rights. This article explores recommendations to ensure equity for prisoners with I/DD.

Using the ADA’s ‘Integration Mandate’ to Disrupt Mass Incarceration (Denver Law Review, 2019)

/in , , , , , , , , , , /by Pam Katz

This document explores how advocates have used, and are beginning to use in new ways, the “integration mandate” of the Americans with Disabilities Act to advocate for the rights of individuals with disabilities to avoid unnecessary entanglement with the criminal justice system.