High Court Limits Disabilities Law

ByABC News
February 21, 2001, 10:16 AM

Feb. 21 -- The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 today that state workers cannot file employment-discrimination lawsuits under a key federal disability-rights law.

The ruling in one of this term's weightiest cases limits the scope of the landmark 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act and continues the high court's recent trend of trimming the power of the federal government over the states.

When Congress passed the disabilities law, lawmakers went too far in allowing state workers to seek monetary damages for alleged employment bias, the slim majority ruled. The 11th Amendment protects states from being sued by private citizens in federal courts, the justices said, and the ADA does not trump that immunity.

Today's ruling reverses a federal appeals court decision that let two Alabama state employees sue over alleged bias. The high court did not rule on the merits of the employees' claims.

Disabilities and civil rights activists had predicted a ruling in favor of the states would jeopardize protections under an array of federal civil rights laws, including the ADA. Alabama, with seven concurring states, said a ruling on its behalf would help curb the overreach of federal power.

A Narrow Majority

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, a champion of states' rights, wrote the opinion for the narrow majority.

"We decide here whether employees of the state of Alabama mayrecover money damages by reason of the state's failure to complywith the (employment discrimination) provisions of Title 1 of theAmericans With Disabilities Act. We hold that such suits are barredby the 11th Amendment," Rehnquist wrotefor the court.

Joining Rehnquist were Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, AntoninScalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. Dissenting wereJustices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburgand Stephen G. Breyer. Writing for the minority, Breyer said, "The court ... improperlyinvades a power that the Constitution assigns to Congress."

Today's case began when Patricia Garrett, a former registered nurse at University of Alabama hospital, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1994.