N.D.Ga.: Waiver by removal in ADA Title I case

A Georgia federal district court held that a state agency waived its sovereign immunity when it removed to federal court a claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act originally filed in state court. Jones v. Georgia Dep’t of Corrections, 2008 WL 779326 (N.D. Ga. Mar. 18, 2008) (No. 07-1228).

 The holding was based on a state court ruling that state antidiscrimination law permitted suits under similar federal laws in Georgia courts. The district court also held that the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework is inapplicable to reasonable-accommodations claims.

                Jones uses prosthetic legs and claimed that the Department refused to accommodate limitations on her ability to walk long distances on the job. She sued in state court, and the Department removed to federal court and asserted sovereign immunity under Board of Trustees of the Univ. of Alabama v. Garrett, 531 U.S. 356 (2001) (ADA Title I does not validly abrogate state immunity). However, the court pointed to Georgia case law stating holding that “the Georgia legislature has specifically waived the state’s sovereign immunity from federal disability discrimination claims because a state statute…had waived immunity from comparable actions brought under state law.” See Williamson v. Dep’t of Human Resources, 258 Ga. App. 113 (2002). And while the state may ordinarily have immunity from the same claims in federal court, under Lapides v. Board of Regents of the Univ. System, 535 U.S. 613 (2002) a state cannot use removal to federal court “to get around an otherwise valid waiver of immunity.”

 

                Proceeding to the merits, the court held that the framework for proving discriminatory intent in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973) is “decidedly inapposite” to reasonable accommodations claims, which are not concerned with discriminatory intent. It cited an unpublished Eleventh Circuit opinion, Nadler v. Harvey, 2007 WL 2404705 (11th Cir. 2007). The court ultimately dismissed Jones’s claims on the merits.