Conservative Majority of SCOTUS Strips Protection for Those Discriminated Against Based on Race, Gender, and Disability
by Jim McCabe, jim@mccabe-lawfirm.com
This past week, on April 28, the Supreme Court of the United States, in a majority opinion written by Justice Roberts and joined in by the conservative members of the Court, issued an opinion that guts protections for those discriminated against on the basis of race, gender, or disability in federally funded programs.
Jane Cummings, a deaf and blind woman, brought the case after she experienced discrimination in the provision of medical services. She requested that a Medicare and Medicaid funded health care provider provide her with a sign language interpreter for her therapy sessions. The provider, Premier Rehab Keller, refused this reasonable request for an accommodation and Ms. Cummings filed a discrimination claim, seeking damages for the emotional distress that she suffered as a result of this refusal.
The Court held that Ms. Cummings could not recover emotional distress damages under the federal laws that she sued under and expressly applied this holding not only to disability discrimination cases under The Rehabilitation Act, but also Title IX sex-discrimination cases that nearly all educational institutions are subjected to, as well as to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits race discrimination in those institutions. These federal laws subject private companies, schools and state and local governments that receive federal funds to liability if they discriminate against individuals on the basis of the protected characteristics identified above. In some cases, these laws are the only legal avenue for redressing wrongs resulting from discrimination.
The members of the Court agreed on the applicable standard (with the exception of Kavanaugh/Gorsuch concurring), namely, that federal laws subjecting entities to liability under the Spending Clause should be analyzed like contract law remedies rather than tort law. The central question they examined was whether an entity who received federal funds had notice that it could be legally liable for emotional distress damages if it intentionally discriminated against someone based on their disability, race, or gender. While that might seem like a pretty obvious answer, through a narrow reading of contract law, the Court held that recipients of federal funds could not be expected to anticipate that.
Specifically, the Supreme Court had previously held that plaintiffs may recover compensatory damages under these federal laws, which generally includes emotional distress that is normally suffered as a result of being discriminated against based on one’s race, gender, or disability. However, while acknowledging that contract law remedies do in some cases permit emotional distress damages as compensatory damages, the Court declined to apply this standard generally to recipients of federal funds, reasoning that authorizing such damages in contract cases was the exception rather than general rule.
The minority, composed of the three more liberal members of the Court, rejected the conservative majority’s reasoning. It argued that while generally speaking, emotional distress damages are not available in contract, courts have always examined the nature of the contract to make that determination. Indeed, the Restatement (Second) (1979), has long held that:
Emotional distress damages were traditionally available when “contract or the breach” was “of such kind that serious emotional disturbance was a particularly likely result.”
The minority went on to reason that the federal statutes at issue prohibit those contracting with the government from engaging in “intentional invidious discrimination” and concluded: “That kind of discrimination is particularly likely to cause serious emotional disturbance.”
The majority’s opinion resulted in Ms. Cummings’ claims being dismissed because she, like many other individuals who have been discriminated against in failure to accommodate cases, had no other damages than the emotional distress she suffered. As such, the decision effectively eliminates the chances of many such aggrieved individuals to redress such wrongs and strips many others of the damages that they suffered, all because of an extremely narrow reading of contract law and a disregard of the common understanding that any recipient of federal funding would have of emotional distress damages associated with intentional discrimination claims.
This decision is a major blow for victims of discrimination, particularly for those with disabilities, who in some cases have no other avenue to recover against federally funded institutions. Hopefully, the Court’s actions will lead to federal and/or state legislation to reinstate these protections for those who interact with these institutions.