Government
Jun. 19, 2002
Justices Bar Punitives Against Public Entities
LOS ANGELES - In an opinion with potentially far-reaching consequences, the conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday banned private citizens from winning punitive damages from public entities that receive federal funds.
The decision came in a case testing the tort remedies available under certain sections of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and federal law that prohibits recipients of federal funds from discriminating against the disabled. Barnes v. Gorman, 2002 DJDAR 6713 (U.S., 2002).
While the court held unanimously that the plaintiff in the case, Jeffrey Gorman, could not collect the punitive damage award, three justices cautioned against the broad language of the majority opinion.
A fractured majority, led by Justice Antonin Scalia, applied a contract-law analogy to funding agreements between the federal government and municipalities under congressional Spending Clause legislation. Punitive damages generally are not an available remedy in breach of contract suits, Scalia held, and should not be allowed in Spending Clause agreements.
"A remedy is appropriate relief only if the recipient is on notice that, by accepting federal funding, it exposes itself to such liability," Scalia wrote for the majority.
Although all nine justices voted to reverse the punitive damage award, only six justices joined the opinion of the court.
Justices David H. Souter and Sandra Day O'Connor joined the majority opinion and filed a concurring opinion, written by Souter.
The court's three most liberal justices also filed an opinion concurring in the judgment.
The court also reasoned that, because Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not allow punitive damages awards, they may not be awarded under the ADA. The disabilities act draws its remedies from the Civil Rights Act.
Responding to objections by Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer that the opinion was too broad, Scalia wrote, "We do not imply ... that all suits under Spending Clause legislation are suits in contract, or that contract-law principles apply to all issues that they raise."
Stevens warned that the opinion "is sure to have unforeseen consequences."
Stevens, who concurred in the judgment against Gorman's punitive damages award but did not join in the opinion, said, "The Court's novel reliance on what has been, at most, a useful analogy to contract law has potentially far-reaching consequences that go well beyond the issues briefed and argued in this case."
The underlying case involved a paraplegic man, Jeffrey Gorman, who sued the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners under the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 for injuries caused during Gorman's 1992 arrest for trespassing at a country-western bar.
A jury awarded Gorman $1 million in compensatory damages and $1.2 million in punitive damages.
The jury based the latter award on Gorman's argument that the Kansas City Police Department failed to maintain appropriate policies for the arrest and transport of disabled people, the opinion stated.
However, the District Court judge nullified the punitive award, finding that such damages were unavailable in private suits.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, holding that "absent clear direction to the contrary by Congress, federal courts have the power to award any appropriate relief" for violation of a federal right.
The nation's high court on Monday reversed the appellate panel in an opinion that seemed to ban punitive awards under only the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act but that may have much-farther-reaching implications, attorneys said.
Jeffrey White of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, which filed an amicus brief for Gorman, called the opinion "disappointing." White said the opinion could chill lawsuits brought under civil rights statutes that expressly allow private citizens to sue the government.
"We are kind of concerned about how far it extends because it doesn't seem to be limited to the case here," White said. "If you have these kind of open-ended [opinions] at the Supreme Court, you don't know where the lower courts are going to go with it."
Several attorneys, however, agreed with the majority that the Stevens' concurrence was overreacting.
Attorney Lawrence Robbins, who represented the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners, called the majority opinion "totally straightforward" and not unexpected.
"Punitive damages are uniquely antithetical to a contract," Robbins of Robbins Russell Englert Orseck & Untereiner in Washington D.C. said. "In light of that, it stands to reason that a statute that should be interpreted according to contractual principles would not give rise to punitive damages."
Robbins acknowledged that the opinion "would extend to lots of statutes because they have been enacted under the Spending Clause."
"Unless Congress specifically provided for [punitive damages], you would not be able to get them [under the Supreme Court's guidelines]," he said.
Sacramento City Attorney Samuel L. Jackson, who represented the California capital and San Francisco in an amicus brief filed on Kansas City's behalf, said the opinion would remove the unpredictability of tort lawsuits against the government.
"If you are made whole, punitive damages are a windfall from the person who was damaged," Jackson said. "One [lawsuit] can paralyze you for months. Small cities can be toppled by one case."
Sacramento is fighting a 9th Circuit decision that would force the city to make $79 million worth of ADA-related adjustments to its sidewalks.
Doug Kmiec, dean of Catholic University School of Law, also believed that Stevens was "unduly concerned."
"I do think the court ... points out that it is not anticipating using the contract analogy as a general governing provision for Spending Clause litigation," Kmiec, a civil rights attorney, said.
Kmiec said the majority seemed more concerned with limiting the impact of civil rights lawsuits by private citizens who have no express standing to sue.
"A majority of the court is generally skeptical of implied causes of action and certainly this majority ... you can see a certain amount of skepticism if not sarcasm in the opinion itself," Kmiec said.
He agreed, however, that plaintiffs' attorneys would have new difficulties in arguing that private citizens who do not have expressly written rights to sue the government should be awarded punitive damages.
The case also was a blow to disability rights advocates. The court heard four cases testing the ADA this term, and all four went against the disabled.
Besides Gorman, the court this session ruled against an assembly-line worker with carpal tunnel syndrome, an airline baggage handler with a back injury and a refinery worker with liver disease.
In those cases, the court made it more difficult for workers to demand special treatment when they suffer partial physical disabilities such as carpal tunnel syndrome, decided that companies' seniority policies almost always trump the demands of disabled workers, and decided that disabled people cannot demand jobs that would threaten their lives or health.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Gina Keating
For reprint rights or to order a copy of your photo:
Email
Jeremy_Ellis@dailyjournal.com
for prices.
Direct dial: 213-229-5424
Send a letter to the editor:
Email: letters@dailyjournal.com