Supreme Court Weighs a Type of Damages Schools
Supreme Court Weighs a Type of Damages Schools Can Face in Civil Rights
Lawsuits
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared wary about eliminating emotional
distress as a form of damages in lawsuits accusing recipients of federal funds
of violating major civil rights laws, including those covering race and sex
discrimination in public schools.
The case before the high court in Keller v. Premier Rehab Keller PLLC (No.
20-219) involves a Texas woman, Jane Cummings, with vision and hearing
impairments who sued a federally funded physical therapy provider for alleged
discrimination under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 after she was denied the
provision of a sign-language interpreter.
But the justices’ ruling in the case will likely affect the availability of
emotional distress damages in multiple civil rights statutes that often cover
schools.
Cummings’s suit includes a claim for compensatory damages for emotional
distress. Two lower courts ruled that such emotional distress damages are not
available under the Rehabilitation Act, or by extension under Title VI of the
Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination based on race and other factors in
federally funded programs.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, in New Orleans, held that under
high court precedent, the remedies available for a violation of a federal law
enacted pursuant to the “spending clause” in Article I of the U.S.
Constitution are limited to those for which the federal-funding recipient is
“on notice” and those “traditionally available in suits for breach of
contract.”
The logic of the appeals court’s decision would also apply to Title IX of the
Education Amendments of 1972, which bars sex discrimination in federally
funded schools. Cummings appealed to the Supreme Court.
“Emotional distress damages are the most common and often the only form of
compensatory damage remedy for victims of intentional discrimination,” said
Andrew Rozynski, the lawyer representing Cummings.
Arguments touched on federal laws prohibiting race and sex discrimination in
schools
The question of emotional-distress damages “of course … applies to the cluster
of statutes including, say, Title IX,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett observed
during the arguments.
Colleen R. Sinzdak, an assistant to the U.S. solicitor general arguing in
support of allowing emotional-distress damages, quickly agreed with Barrett.
She said that if the opposite were correct, then a high school student who won a
major 1992 Supreme Court decision in Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools
that she could sue under Title IX for compensatory damages over her sexual
harassment and abuse by a teacher, would be hollow because those damages could
not include the emotional distress she suffered.
“If respondent were correct, then the [student] in Franklin won only a pyrrhic
victory because, while this court held that she was entitled to seek damages
for the severe sexual harassment and abuse she suffered at the hands of a
teacher in violation of Title IX, she was not entitled to compensation for the
only injuries she described in her briefing, the profound psychological and
emotional harms caused by the discrimination,” Sinzdak said. “That is not the
law, and this court should not make it so.”
Emotional-distress damages have also been recognized in school cases alleging
racial discrimination in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
A friend-of-the-court brief in support of Cummings by the NAACP Legal Defense
and Educational Fund cites several cases in which K-12 students have won
damages for emotional distress under Title VI. One case involved a student who
said he was retaliated against for complaining about the exclusion of minority
students from a gifted and talented program and was awarded $50,000 in
emotional distress damages.
“Courts have been particularly cognizant of the emotional harm suffered by
students who experience racial discrimination in educational settings,” the
NAACP LDF brief says.
Sinzdak noted during the arguments that in the context of Title VI, “Often,
we’re dealing with children who are being subject to discrimination within a
school system. So we don’t have the sort of traditional pecuniary harms. So it
makes sense that the compensation there is available for emotional distress.”
Federal funding recipients argue against the availability of
emotional-distress damages
Kannon K. Shanmugam, representing the small rehabilitation center sued by
Cummings, said “the court should be cautious about recognizing the
availability of emotional distress damages here. … Emotional distress damages
are notoriously difficult to quantify.”
In his merits brief, Shanmugam observed that federal agencies often hold the
threat of withdrawal of federal funds over recipients of aid under spending
clause legislation “as a sword of Damocles.”
Spending clause statutes such as Title IX are less about compensating
individuals for discrimination and “really about providing equal access and
ensuring the parties that receive federal funds provide equal access to
federal programs,” he said during the arguments.
The rehab provider is supported by friend-of-the-court briefs by business
groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and state and local government
groups, although, notably, the National School Boards Association, which often
signs on to such government association briefs, did not join the one in this
case.
Shanmugam appeared to drew some support from a few members of the court, with
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asking
whether the rehab provider had received fair notice of its antidiscrimination
obligations under federal law.
But several other justices seemed to support the arguments on behalf of
Cummings or at least think there has not been much of a problem with
exorbitant awards for emotional distress under the federal civil rights laws.
“I think the most important point is the nature of the contract here is an
agreement by your client to treat people with disabilities equally to others
and to provide accommodations and let them enjoy the benefit of their services
if it’s reasonable to do so,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said to Shanmugam.
Barrett said she was taken aback that there was a question of adequate notice
to federal funding recipients over emotional-distress damages.
“I find it very surprising that this case is here so many years, I mean, you
know, 40-plus years into recognizing the causes of action under this family of
statutes,” she said. “Everybody seemed to be on notice these cases were being
decided and [emotional distress] damages being awarded. No one complained.”
Justice Elena Kagan said the high court has “long recognized that discriminatory
harms are often stigmatic in nature, that they can be very deep and very
wounding even if there is no economic harm.”
She suggested that if the court were to recognize emotional-distress damages
but was not inclined to take it upon itself to set dollar caps for each case,
it could still set rules meant to “keep them in check.”
“We don’t have to set a number in order to convey a sense that these [damages]
should be kept in control,” Kagan said.
Shanmugam pushed back, noting that “there are plenty of examples of emotional
distress damages running into the seven figures” and that the idea of the
court setting or conveying some limits on such damages “just points up the
quintessentially legislative nature of this whole undertaking” by a judicial
body.
