The Supreme Court appeared skeptical on Monday of a Minnesota school district’s argument that students with disabilities must prove their school acted in “bad faith” in failing to provide adequate accommodations in order to prove discrimination.
A family who had sued the district, the Osseo Area School District near Minneapolis, argued that federal law required merely that the school display “deliberate indifference,” a lower standard.
The two sides had argued in front of lower courts over the legal standard in schools. But in recent court filings, the school district argued that the higher standard could apply broadly to all sorts of disability rights claims under the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
That unnerved some disability rights groups, who warned that if the court accepted the school district’s argument, the higher “bad faith” standard could make it much harder for Americans with disabilities to successfully bring court challenges.
The school district’s position led to an unusually tense oral argument, with lawyers for the family and the federal government arguing that the district had improperly shifted its position after the justices had agreed to hear the case. The lawyer for the school district rejected those claims, going so far as to suggest that her opponents were lying, an accusation that prompted a rebuke from one of the justices.
The case, A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools, No. 24-249, stemmed from a dispute over whether the Minnesota school district provided reasonable accommodations for Ava Tharpe, a teenage girl with severe epilepsy that made it difficult for her to attend school during normal hours.
The girl’s family said they had requested evening instruction but were told the district would not provide it, leaving Ava with only 65 percent of the instructional hours that her peers received.
After the district rejected the Tharpe family’s request for evening instruction, the family filed a complaint with the Minnesota Department of Education. An administrative law judge found that the school district had violated federal law, ruling that the district’s “prevailing and paramount consideration” was not Ava’s “need for instruction,” but rather the school system’s desire “to maintain the regular hours of the school’s faculty.”
The dispute then moved to federal court, where a trial judge sided, in part, with the school district, finding that under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act, the Tharpe family was required to show the school district had acted with either “bad faith” or “gross misjudgment.”
A panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit agreed.
In front of the Supreme Court, the two sides argued over both the standard that should be required to prove discrimination in schools — and whether that standard should be applied in other settings.
The lawyer for the student and her family, Roman Martinez, argued that the school district’s line of reasoning would “revolutionize disability law, stripping protections from vulnerable victims and gutting the reasonable accommodations needed for equal opportunity.”
A federal government lawyer, Nicole F. Reaves, assistant to the solicitor general, appeared to agree, calling the district’s position “breathtakingly broad.”
The lawyer for the school district, Lisa S. Blatt, argued that, for schools, the “bad faith” standard was proper. She said lowering the bar for proving discrimination would be costly for school districts and could even jeopardize federal funding if it was determined that schools had failed to comply with federal law.
Ms. Blatt argued that a ruling against the school district “would expose 46,000 public schools to liability when, for 40 years, they have trained teachers, allocated budgets and obtained insurance all in reliance” on the “bad faith” standard.
“Every good-faith disagreement would risk liability or even the nuclear option, the loss of federal funding, which is over a hundred billion dollars,” she said.
Ms. Blatt conceded that her argument meant that this higher standard could apply to disability cases that do not involve public schools, potentially heightening the legal standard for all disability rights cases.
Some of the justices appeared incredulous.
“Your argument is that ‘bad faith’ should apply everywhere?” asked Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
When Ms. Blatt answered yes, Justice Amy Coney Barrett jumped in.
“That would be a sea change, right?” Justice Barrett asked.
“Well, it would be only a sea change in terms of liability,” Ms. Blatt responded.
“A sea change in terms of liability is a pretty big sea change,” Justice Barrett answered.
Ms. Blatt said it was not true that the school district had shifted its position, going so far as to say the accusation was “a lie and inaccurate.” That upended the normal decorum of the court — where advocates often use the term “friend” to refer to their opponents.
“You believe that Mr. Martinez and the solicitor general are lying,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said. “Is that your accusation?”
“At oral argument, yes, absolutely,” Ms. Blatt responded. “It is not true that we —”
Justice Gorsuch broke in before she finished, saying, “I think you should be more careful with your words, Ms. Blatt.”
“OK, well, they should be more careful in character — mischaracterizing a position by an experienced advocate of the Supreme Court, with all due respect,” she said.
Justice Gorsuch returned to the point later in the argument, asking Ms. Blatt to withdraw her accusation. After an extended back and forth, she agreed.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor also expressed concern over the school district’s position.
She suggested Ms. Blatt might have violated a court rule that obligates lawyers to point out any perceived misstatements of law or facts in briefs arguing that the court should not hear a case.
Ms. Blatt said the school system had not argued that point but said failing to do so did not violate court rules because it had not been necessary given the school district had merely been required in its filings to defend its win in the lower appeals court.
A decision in the case is expected by the end of the court’s term, which typically concludes in late June or early July.