Ensuring People with Disabilities Have Opportunities for Meaningful Relief under Disability Civil Rights Laws

This fall, The Arc of the United States and other disability rights organizations filed an amicus brief in a case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit called Payan v. Los Angeles Community College District. The case is about what kind of damages Plaintiffs can receive when they file lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Here's what you need to know about this case and how we're working to ensure people with disabilities continue to have multiple avenues for relief under federal disability rights laws.

Background on the Case

When you file a lawsuit under the ADA, two types of remedies are available:

1. Injunctive relief stops future violations of the ADA. For example, a court may order a defendant to change its policies around reasonable accommodations so that it will not deny accommodations to disabled people in the future.
2. Money damages pay plaintiffs for the past harm of discrimination. Damages may be measured in many different ways, including lost work hours, lost opportunity to participate in a service, or emotional distress.

In 2017, two blind students and two organizational plaintiffs sued the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD), alleging that LACCD failed to reasonably accommodate the blind students' disabilities by refusing to provide educational materials in an accessible format. The Plaintiffs won at trial and were awarded $50,000 in damages. LACCD appealed to the Ninth Circuit in 2021, which overturned the district court's judgment and sent the case back to the district court for a new trial.

At the conclusion of the second trial, the jury again found that LACCD had intentionally violated the ADA in fourteen ways. The jury awarded $242,500 in damages to the Plaintiffs, replacing the prior jury award. However, the district court reduced the financial compensation to a paltry $1,650. Its reasoning was that following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in a case called Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, emotional distress damages are unavailable under the ADA. The district court also entered a narrow permanent injunction against LACCD that only addressed certain violations of the ADA, such as inaccessible library materials and an inaccessible website. The injunction did not address many of the fourteen violations that the jury had found. The Plaintiffs appealed to the Ninth Circuit again, arguing that the district court had improperly reduced the damages and had ignored the jury's findings in issuing a narrow injunction.

Why We Filed An Amicus Brief

In November 2024, The Arc and its partners filed an amicus brief in support of the Plaintiffs in Payan. The amicus brief makes these arguments:

• The district court's injunction failed to remedy all fourteen violations of the ADA found by the jury. It ignored violations around inaccessible course materials, ineffective accommodations policies, and lack of training for LACCD disability personnel.
• The district court should not have relied on Cummings in reducing the Plaintiffs' financial compensation. Cummings is not about the ADA and only concerns remedies available under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Cummings should not be extended to cover the remedies available under the ADA.
• Even if Cummings does apply, it does not reach the damages at issue in this case. The jury awarded the Plaintiffs damages for lost educational opportunity, not emotional distress. Damages for lost educational opportunity are still available post-Cummings, and the district court was wrong to reduce the damages award here.

Why This Case Matters for People with Disabilities

Disability rights statutes like the ADA are meant to root out discrimination in all areas of society, including employment, government services, and private businesses. Courts must issue broad injunctive and monetary relief when a jury has found proven violations of the ADA. This serves to deter future violations of the ADA, and also puts other potential defendants on notice that this type of discrimination will not be tolerated.

The Arc's Position

The Arc participated in this amicus brief because we believe that people with disabilities should have the same human rights as all people and are entitled to the same benefits and legal protection of their civil rights. In our position statement on Human and Civil Rights, we share that people with disabilities:

…are entitled to exercise their rights and to have their human rights and civil rights respected. When their rights are violated, people with [disabilities] are entitled to protection, rights restoration, and compensation for losses.  All people with [disabilities] have the right to accommodations, assistance, and supports they need to exercise and ensure their human and civil rights. Local, state, federal, and international governments must strongly enforce all human and civil rights.

The Arc has been involved with the fight to pass, implement, and defend the ADA since the law's inception in 1990. We have filed numerous amicus briefs and rely on the ADA in our own litigation efforts every day. We will not rest until every person with individual and developmental disabilities can protect their rights to the fullest extent of the law.

What's Next

The Arc will continue to watch this case as it is argued before the Ninth Circuit. We will continue to fight for an expansive view of the ADA and its protections in courts across the country.