Martin v. State of Kan.

• Decision Date: 30 September 1997
• Docket Number: No. 97-2025-JWL.,97-2025-JWL.
• Citation: 978 F.Supp. 992
• Parties: Steven A. MARTIN, Plaintiff, v. STATE OF KANSAS, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Kansas

978 F.Supp. 992

Steven A. MARTIN, Plaintiff, v. STATE OF KANSAS, Defendant.

No. 97-2025-JWL.

United States District Court, D. Kansas.

September 30, 1997.

Kirk W. Lowry, Palmer & Lowry, Topeka, KS, for Steven A. Martin.

Lisa A. Mendoza, Edward F. Britton, Jr., Kansas Dept. of Corrections, Topeka, KS, for Kansas Dept. of Corrections, State of Kansas.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

LUNGSTRUM, District Judge.

In this action, plaintiff has brought claims for damages against defendant State of Kansas, his former employer, pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 12101-12213. Defendant terminated plaintiff from his position as a correctional officer at Lansing Correctional Facility. The matter is presently before the court on defendant's motion to dismiss the action based on Eleventh Amendment immunity (Doc. 17) and defendant's motion to strike or to dismiss for failure to exhaust administrative remedies (Doc. 21). For the reasons set forth below, the court denies both motions.

I. Eleventh Amendment Immunity (Doc. 17)

Defendant argues that plaintiff's claims under the ADA should be dismissed because it is protected from suit by the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution.¹ The Eleventh Amendment bars suits against a State in federal court by its own citizens as well as those by citizens of other States. Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corp. v. Feeney, 495 U.S. 299, 304, 110 S.Ct. 1868, 1872, 109 L.Ed.2d 264 (1990). This sovereign immunity is not absolute, however; a State may consent to suit or Congress may abrogate the States' immunity. Id. Plaintiff does not contend that the State of Kansas has waived its immunity here. Thus, the only question is whether Congress validly abrogated the States' immunity in the ADA.

Last year, in Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, 517 U.S. 609, 116 S.Ct. 1114, 134 L.Ed.2d 252 (1996), the Supreme Court set forth a two-part test for determining whether Congress has abrogated the States' Eleventh Amendment immunity: the court must determine "first, whether Congress has unequivocally expressed its intent to abrogate the immunity, and second, whether Congress has acted pursuant to a valid exercise of power." Id. at ___, 116 S.Ct. at 1123 (citations omitted). The court answers the first question in the affirmative here. The ADA provides: "A State shall not be immune under the eleventh amendment to the Constitution of the United States from an action in Federal or State court of competent jurisdiction for a violation of this chapter." 42 U.S.C. § 12202. By this provision, Congress has unequivocally expressed its intent to abrogate the States' sovereign immunity. Defendant's motion therefore turns on whether Congress acted pursuant to valid exercise of power in enacting section 12202.

Before last year, the Supreme Court had recognized only the Constitution's Commerce Clause and Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment as proper bases for Congress's abrogation of States' sovereign immunity. Seminole Tribe, 517 U.S. at ___, 116 S.Ct. at 1125. In Seminole Tribe, however, the Court held that Congress could not use Article I of the Constitution to override the Eleventh Amendment, thereby leaving only the Fourteenth Amendment as a basis for abrogation. Id. at ___, 116 S.Ct. at 1132. Defendant asserts that the ADA's abrogation provision is invalid because it was enacted pursuant to the Commerce Clause. Congress clearly and explicitly invoked its "power to enforce the fourteenth amendment" in enacting the ADA, however. 42 U.S.C. § 12101(b)(4). Accordingly, unless Congress exceeded its enforcement power under the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress properly abrogated the States' Eleventh Amendment immunity with respect to suits under the ADA.

Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that "Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions" of the Amendment, including the Equal Protection Clause. U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 5. The Supreme Court has defined the Equal Protection Clause to mean that "no State shall `deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,' which is essentially a direction that all persons similarly situated should be treated alike." City of Cleburne, Tex. v. Cleburne Living Ctr., Inc., 473 U.S. 432, 439, 105 S.Ct. 3249, 3254, 87 L.Ed.2d 313 (1985). Section 5 gives Congress broad power to enforce that direction: "Correctly viewed, § 5 is a positive grant of legislative power authorizing Congress to exercise its discretion in determining whether and what legislation is needed to secure the guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment." Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641, 651, 86 S.Ct. 1717, 1723-1724, 16 L.Ed.2d 828 (1966). In Katzenbach, the Supreme Court stated that, to measure whether a statute constitutes "appropriate legislation" under Section 5 to enforce the Equal Protection Clause, a court must decide "whether [the statute] may be regarded as an enactment to enforce the Equal Protection Clause, whether it is plainly adapted to that end and whether it is not prohibited by but is consistent with the letter and spirit of the constitution." Id. Last term, in City of Boerne v. Flores, ___ U.S. ___, 117 S.Ct. 2157, 138 L.Ed.2d 624 (1997), the Court enunciated the following standard: "There must be a congruence and proportionality between the injury to be prevented or remedied and the means adopted to that end." Id. at ___, 117 S.Ct. at 2159.

Defendant argues that the ADA fails to meet these standards and that Congress therefore exceeded its power under Section 5 in enacting it. A great majority of the courts that have decided this issue since the Supreme Court's decision in Seminole Tribe, including the Seventh Circuit and the Ninth Circuit, have concluded that the ADA represents a valid exercise of Congress's power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Clark v. State of Calif., 123 F.3d 1267, 1270-1271 (9th Cir.1997); Crawford v. Indiana Dept. of Corrections, 115 F.3d 481, 487 (7th Cir.1997) (Posner, J.); Autio v. State of Minn., 968 F.Supp. 1366, 1369-72 (D.Minn.1997); Williams v. Ohio Dept. of Mental Health, 960 F.Supp. 1276, 1280-83 (S.D.Ohio 1997); Mayer v. University of Minn., 940 F.Supp. 1474, 1477-80 (D.Minn. 1996); Niece v. Fitzner, 941 F.Supp. 1497, 1503-04 (E.D.Mich.1996); Armstrong v. Wilson, 942 F.Supp. 1252, 1260-62 (N.D.Cal. 1996), aff'd on other grounds, 124 F.3d 1019 (9th Cir.1997). The court is aware of only one opinion since Seminole Tribe reaching the opposite conclusion. See Nihiser v. Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, 979 F.Supp. 1168, 1170-76 (S.D.Ohio 1997); see also Pierce v. King, 918 F.Supp. 932, 940 (E.D.N.C.1996) (dicta, decided before Seminole Tribe).

Congress clearly enacted the ADA to combat discrimination against the disabled. In the statute's first section, Congress made numerous findings concerning disability discrimination, including the following findings: that such discrimination is a "serious and pervasive social problem," occurring in such "critical areas" as employment, housing, public accommodations, education, transportation, communication, and access to public services; that this discrimination includes "outright intentional exclusion, the discriminatory effects of architectural, transportation, and communication barriers, overprotective rules and policies, [and] failure to make modifications to existing facilities and practices;" and that the disabled occupy an "inferior status in our society, and are severely disadvantaged socially, vocationally, economically, and educationally." 42 U.S.C. § 12101(a). Congress's express purposes in enacting the ADA included providing "a clear and comprehensive national mandate for the elimination of discrimination against individuals with disabilities," and providing "clear, strong, consistent, enforceable standards for addressing" such discrimination. Id. § 12101(b).

Defendant suggests that the ADA is not a proper exercise of Congress's Section 5 power because the disabled do not comprise a suspect class under Equal Protection jurisprudence and discrimination against them is not judged under a heightened standard of review. See City of Cleburne, 473 U.S. at 442-46, 105 S.Ct. at 3255-58 (applying rational basis standard to government action affecting mentally retarded). The court disagrees. In City of Cleburne, the Supreme Court stated that its refusal to employ a heightened standard of review with respect to a particular group "does not leave them entirely unprotected from invidious discrimination." Id. at 446, 105 S.Ct. at 3257-58. In that case, the Court applied a rational basis standard in concluding that a zoning decision involving the mentally retarded violated the Equal Protection Clause. Id. at 450, 105 S.Ct. at 3259. Accordingly, even non-suspect classes are entitled to equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment. In addition, the Court explained the judicial standards of review as follows:

Section 5 of the Amendment empowers Congress to enforce this mandate [of the Equal Protection Clause], but absent controlling congressional direction, the courts have themselves devised standards for determining the validity of state legislation or other official action that is challenged as denying equal protection.

Id. at 439, 105 S.Ct. at 3254. In this case, Congress, in enacting the ADA, has provided the direction absent in City of Cleburne, thus making distinctions between the judicial standards of review meaningless. The court concludes that Congress's power to enforce the Equal Protection Clause does not depend on the applicability of a heightened judicial standard of review. The Equal Protection Clause protects the disabled from discrimination; therefore, Congress may act to remedy such discrimination under its Section 5 enforcement power. See Williams, 960 F.Supp. at 1281-82; Mayer, 940 F.Supp. at 1479.²

Defendant's primary argument is that Congress has exceeded its power to...