Appellate Practice
May 31, 2001
Golfer Hits Hole in One At U.S. Supreme Court
WASHINGTON - Golfer Casey Martin will get another shot at the greens following Tuesday's U.S. Supreme Court decision ordering the athlete be allowed to compete with his disability accommodated.
Advocates for the handicapped applauded a ruling they said bolsters the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act, but several admitted they were surprised, given the Professional Golf Association's argument against allowing Martin to drive a golf cart between holes during tournaments.
The ruling "challenges all our ideas about what is an athlete," Lind Kilb, a staff lawyer for the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund in Berkeley, said. "The stereotypes and presumptions to be surmounted were so extraordinary."
Also Tuesday, a divided court declined to hear a case involving display of the Ten Commandments in front of a municipal building in Elkhart, Ind.
Golfer Casey Martin, 28, suffers from Klippel-Trenaunay-Weber Syndrome, a degenerative circulatory disorder that affects blood flow. Martin has suffered severe pain from the condition, which affects his ability to walk at times.
He needs a motorized cart to travel from hole to hole on an 18-hole course, but PGA Tour rules require competitors to walk the distances.
The PGA had argued that fatigue from walking can affect the outcome of golf matches.
But Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the 7-2 majority, rejected that claim, affirming a lower-court decision in support of Martin.
"That argument's force is mitigated by the fact that it is impossible to guarantee that all golfers will play under exactly the same conditions or that an individual's ability will be the sole determinant of the outcome," Stevens wrote.
"There is no doubt that allowing Martin to use a cart would not fundamentally alter the nature of petitioner's tournaments, given the District Court's uncontested finding that Martin endures greater fatigue with a cart than his able-bodied competitors do by walking," he wrote.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the dissent, joined by fellow conservative Justice Clarence Thomas.
"In my view, today's opinion exercises a benevolent compassion that the law does not place it within our power to impose," Scalia said.
He said the law "mandates no such ridiculous thing."
In a statement, the PGA Tour reiterated its contention that the rules of competition should apply to all competitors without modification for any individual.
"In the coming months, the Tour's Policy Board will fully review and evaluate the Court's decision, and how that decision and the applicable requirements of the ADA might affect the Tour's regulations and rules of competition," the statement said.
Martin's lawyer in New York, Roy L. Reardon, said the majority of the justices clearly agreed with his argument that competitors in professional sports should be covered by the same American With Disabilities Act protections as observers of public events such as golf matches.
"If [the PGA] was correct, they would be carving themselves totally out from under the impact of the law," Reardon said. "There's no exemption for them."
The PGA - backed by golf legends Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus - also had argued that bending its rules for Martin would "fundamentally alter" the nature of the activity.
The Supreme Court ruling sends a message to sports organizations that they must meet a high burden when attempting to prove such claims, according to Curtis Decker, an attorney and executive director of the National Association of Protection and Advocacy Systems, which filed an amicus brief in the case.
It reinforces the concept of "reasonable accommodation" as demanded by the disabilities law, Decker said, and gives advocates for the disabled "a lot of ammunition" to push for such claims.
Kilb said disabled athletes aren't looking for a competitive edge, just a fair chance to compete.
"This decision doesn't mean you get whatever you want just because you have a disability," she said. "It very explicitly requires a thoughtful assessment of rules."
Whether the decision in PGA Tour Inc. v. Martin, 2001 DJDAR 5217 (U.S. May 29, 2001), will affect other professional sports remains to be seen, she said, but other organizations will have to consider carefully the issues addressed in this case before waging a similar legal battle.
On Jan. 19, 2000, Martin became the fist PGA Tour member to use a cart in competition. He shot a 4-under-par 68 in the first round of the Bob Hope Classic but wound up missing the cut by three strokes.
In December, on the final day of a qualifying tournament, Martin fell one stroke short of regaining his PGA Tour card. He has full status on the Buy.com Tour. His best showing this year was a tie for 34th in the Louisiana Open on April 1.
Ruling in the Ten Commandments case, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist joined Scalia and Thomas in the minority. The majority of justices voted against reviewing a case involving the Elkhart, Ind., display of the Ten Commandments.
The court's action let stand a lower-court ruling that the marker violated the constitutional boundaries between church and state. A federal judge will decide what to do with the granite monument, which has been in Elkhart since 1958.
In dissent, Rehnquist wrote that Elkhart's display had a secular as well as a religious purpose. By displaying the monument outside the building housing local courts and prosecutors, the city sought to reflect the cultural, historical and legal significance of the Ten Commandments, according to the chief justice.
Stevens, writing for the majority, saw it differently.
"Even though the first two lines of the monument's text appear in significantly larger font than the remainder, they are ignored by the dissenters," Stevens wrote. "Those lines read: 'THE TEN COMMANDMENTS - I AM the LORD thy God."
"The graphic emphasis placed on those first lines is rather hard to square with the proposition that the monument expresses no particular religious preference," he wrote.
Bruce Ackerman, a professor of law and political science at Yale University Law School, said the disagreements show the divided court was wise not to take the case.
He said the court should "take a low visibility and profile" as a result of the bitter 5-4 decision that decided the presidential election for George W. Bush.
"The point is not whether the conservatives get a 5-4 victory or the moderates get a 5-4 victory. The path of common sense here is not to come up with more 5-4 decisions on controversial subjects," he said.
Ackerman predicted continuing confusion on church-state matters because of conflicting rulings. But he said that with the court so divided, "Wisdom requires accepting the confusion."
Associated Press contributed to this story.
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