Jones v. METRO. ATLANTA RAPID TRANSIT AUTH.

• Decision Date: 27 August 1981
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. C80-2005.
• Citation: 522 F. Supp. 370
• Parties: William E. JONES, Plaintiff, v. METROPOLITAN ATLANTA RAPID TRANSIT AUTHORITY, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Georgia

522 F. Supp. 370

William E. JONES, Plaintiff, v. METROPOLITAN ATLANTA RAPID TRANSIT AUTHORITY, Defendant.

Civ. A. No. C80-2005.

United States District Court, N. D. Georgia, Atlanta Division.

August 27, 1981.

Alexander J. Repasky, Atlanta, Ga., for plaintiff.

Paul A. Howell, Jr., Denise Caffrey, Francis Toole-MARTA, Atlanta, Ga., for defendant.

ORDER

MOYE, Chief Judge.

Plaintiff William E. Jones brought this suit against the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) pursuant to section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. § 794. The plaintiff alleges that MARTA is a recipient of federal financial assistance as contemplated by section 504 and has discriminated against him, an otherwise qualified handicapped individual as defined by 29 U.S.C. § 706(7), solely by reason of his handicap. As a result, plaintiff seeks actual and punitive damages, recovery for mental anguish, pain and suffering, and reinstatement to his former position as a bus driver.

Defendant MARTA has moved for summary judgment or, alternatively, partial summary judgment. Defendant's motion for summary judgment rests on the argument that plaintiff lacks standing to sue under section 504; its argument for partial summary judgment seeks a ruling that recovery may not be had for general or punitive damages under section 504 as a matter of law or that recovery for those types of damages is barred by the applicable statute of limitations. The Court first considers the threshold issue of standing.

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 794, on which plaintiff relies for recovery provides:

No otherwise qualified handicapped individual in the United States, as defined in section 706(7) of this title, shall, solely by reason of his handicap, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance or under any program or activity conducted by any Executive agency or by the United States Postal Service. The head of each such agency shall promulgate such regulations as may be necessary to carry out the amendments to this section made by the Rehabilitation, Comprehensive Services, and Developmental Disabilities Act of 1978. Copies of any proposed regulation shall be submitted to appropriate authorizing committees of the Congress, and such regulation may take effect no earlier than the thirtieth day after the date on which such regulation is so submitted to such committees.

Section 504(a)(2) of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 794(a)(2), provides:

The remedies, procedures, and rights set forth in title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 shall be available to any person aggrieved by an act or failure to act by any recipient of Federal assistance or Federal provider of such assistance under section 794 of this title.

Therefore, one must look to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to determine the remedies, procedures, and rights of the plaintiff.

Title VI, Section 601, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d, provides:

No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

Title VI, Section 604, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-3, provides:

Nothing in this subchapter shall be construed to authorize action under this subchapter by any department or agency with respect to any employment practice of any employer, employment agency, or labor organizations except where a primary objective of the Federal financial assistance is to provide employment.

The Congress, in enacting the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, generally patterned the legislation after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Specifically, Congress patterned section 504 after Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and section 901 of the Education Amendments Act of 1972. See S.Rep.No. 93-1297, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. 39, reprinted in 1974 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 6373, 6390. Since November 2, 1980, the Attorney General has coordinated the administration and enforcement of section 504 at the direction of the President since the Rehabilitation Act does not provide for the enforcement of its provisions. Exec. Order No. 12,250, 45 Fed.Reg. 72,995 (1980), reprinted in 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-1 note, at 199 (Supp.1980). Prior to the issuance of that executive order the responsibility for administering and enforcing section 504 had rested with the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Exec. Order No. 11,914 § 5, 45 C.F.R. Part 85, app. A (1979), reprinted in 29 U.S.C. § 794 note (1976). Both executive orders, however, provided for the issuance by the various federal departments and agencies of appropriate guidelines or regulations to insure the proper application of section 504 to recipients of federal financial assistance as long as those regulations were consistent with the requirements of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and later, the Attorney General. See Exec. Order No. 11,914 § 2; Exec. Order No. 12,250 § 1-402.

The specific provisions of the Rehabilitation Act recited above are in part the result of the 1978 Amendments to the Rehabilitation Act. The 1978 Amendments made available to those aggrieved under section 504 the remedies, rights, and procedures available under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and provided attorneys' fees to prevailing private litigants. See 29 U.S.C. § 794a(a)(2) and (b). The 1978 Amendments also limited the reach of section 504 by the express refusal of section 604 of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to authorize government enforcement actions against a recipient of federal aid unless a primary objective of the federal financial assistance is to provide employment. See 29 U.S.C. § 794a(a)(2) (reprinted supra) and 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-3 (reprinted supra). While Congress in 1978 burdened section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act with the limitations of section 604 of the Civil Rights Act, it chose not to so burden section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act. The 1978 Amendments made the remedies, procedures, and rights set forth in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1974 applicable to section 501 and those remedies, procedures, and rights include no limitations as found in section 604. See 29 U.S.C. § 794a(a)(1) and 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-15.

Having outlined the statutory setting of this suit, the Court now considers defendant MARTA's motion for summary judgment. MARTA contends that since the remedies, procedures, and rights under section 504 are those remedies, procedures and rights available under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, it follows that a complainant alleging handicapped discrimination in employment pursuant to section 504 must show that the purpose of the federal financial assistance received by the employee is to provide employment, as required by section 604 of the Civil Rights Act, as explained above. As MARTA notes, the three United States Courts of Appeal which have considered this question have all so held. Simpson v. Reynolds Metals Co., Inc., 629 F.2d 1226 (7th Cir. 1980); Carmi v. Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, 620 F.2d 672 (8th Cir. 1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 892, 101 S.Ct. 249, 66 L.Ed.2d 117 (1980); Trageser v. Libbie Rehabilitation Center, Inc., 590 F.2d 87, 89 (4th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 442 U.S. 947, 99 S.Ct. 2895, 61 L.Ed.2d 318 (1979). The court in Simpson held that to maintain an action for employment discrimination under section 504, a handicapped individual must be an intended beneficiary of the federal financial assistance received by his employer or must be able to show that the discrimination directed against him affected the beneficiaries of such aid. 629 F.2d at 1227. MARTA, in addition, refers the Court to United States v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 372 F.2d 836 (5th Cir. 1966), wherein the Fifth Circuit held that section 604 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 limits the applicability of Title VI to discrimination against the beneficiaries of the federally assisted programs and does not apply to discrimination against employees of federally assisted programs unless the employees are the intended beneficiaries of the program. Id. at 882-83.

MARTA argues, therefore, that the plaintiff herein must show that the purpose of the federal financial assistance to MARTA is to provide employment or that the alleged discrimination directed against him affects the beneficiaries of such aid. MARTA has supplemented the record with the affidavits of Alan F. Keipper, MARTA General Manager, and Carroll O. Olson, MARTA Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA) Coordinator, who have stated that MARTA is the recipient of federal financial assistance in the form of engineering and construction grants and operating subsidiaries received from the United States Department of Transportation as administered by UMTA. Olson's affidavit has attached to it all of the grant contracts received by MARTA from UMTA for operating assistance from July 1, 1976, through June 30, 1981. MARTA's argument is, of course, that these affidavits and copies of grants, along with the findings and purposes of the Urban Mass Transportation Act, 49 U.S.C. § 1601 et seq., which it recites, indicate clearly that plaintiff Jones may not recover under section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act since the federal financial assistance MARTA receives does not have as a primary objective the provision of employment.

In response to MARTA's defense based on lack of standing to sue the plaintiff has made few arguments. Plaintiff first relies upon Poole v. South Plainfield Board of Education, 490 F.Supp. 948 (D.N.J.1980), which held that section 504 is applicable to the interscholastic athletic activities of a school system receiving federal funding even if none of the federal funds are specifically spent on interscholastic...