Supreme Court Upholds ADA Damages Against States For Constitutional Violations In Prisons

The Supreme Court, in a short unanimous opinion by Justice Scalia, has held that state prisons may be sued for damages under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act on claims that also violate the Constitution.

The Supreme Court, in a short unanimous opinion by Justice Scalia, has held that state prisons may be sued for damages under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act on claims that also violate the Constitution. United States v. Georgia, No. 04-1203, --- S.Ct. ----, 2006 WL 43973 (Jan. 10, 2006). The Court did not reach the issue whether Congress had also validly abrogated state sovereign immunity for purely statutory violations of the ADA, remanding those for further development below. The decision gives individuals with disabilities and others a new remedy against states for constitutional violations even beyond state prisons.

Justice Scalia wrote, “While the Members of this Court have disagreed regarding the scope of Congress’s ‘prophylactic’ enforcement powers under §5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, no one doubts that §5 grants Congress the power to ‘enforce...the provisions’ of the Amendment by creating private remedies against the States for actual violations of those provisions” (citations omitted). States are not generally liable for damages for constitutional violations absent a violation of a statute, like the ADA, that gives plaintiffs a right of action against states. Notably, the Court did not require Congress to show a history and pattern of past state constitutional violations before authorizing a remedy for constitutional violations. The Court’s unequivocal language rejected the position of the Eleventh Circuit that ADA Title II as a whole was invalid in damage actions against state prisons because the statute applied far beyond conduct so extreme that it constituted cruel and unusual punishment.

The opinion likely creates an exception for constitutional violations to the Court’s prior holdings that states may not be sued for damages under the employment discrimination provisions of Title I of the ADA or the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Yet that may be cold comfort, as the Court has interpreted the Equal Protection Clause to give little protection to claims of age or disability discrimination (and one hopes states will not violate other constitutional provisions, e.g., inflictint cruel and unusual punishments, in dealing with their employees).

In the Georgia case, plaintiff Goodman’s claims were “both grave and trivial.” The state did not dispute that Goodman stated violations of both the ADA and the Eighth Amendment in claiming that he was confined in a cell so small that he could not move his wheelchair, could not get to the toilet, was forced to sit in his bodily waste for hours at a time, and broke bones trying to get to the toilet or bed without assistance. But he also challenged the temperature and lighting in his cell and claimed that he was unlawfully segregated in a medical prison due to his disability, among other claims.

The Supreme Court reversed the Eleventh Circuit with respect to the constitutional claims, but remanded for the lower courts to analyze the non-constitutional claims “on a claim-by-claim basis” to determine whether “Congress’s purported abrogation of sovereign immunity as to that class of conduct is nevertheless valid.” Justice Ginsburg, joined by Justice Stevens, wrote a concurrence stressing that the Court’s decision applied to the full range of constitutional violations, and not simply those under the Eighth Amendment.