The Sixth and Third Circuits both hold today that the "plausibility" pleading standard of Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1955 (2009), applies to garden-variety employment discrimination cases. In the same opinion, the Third Circuit declares a four-year limitations period for a Rehabilitation Act failure-to-transfer claim under 29 U.S.C. § 794(d).Up until recently, the governing standard for judging the fitness of a federal complaint under Rule 8 was Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46 (1957), which permitted district courts to dismiss a complaint for failure to state a claim only if "it appear[ed] beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief." Id. With the advent of Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U. S. 544 (2007), the standard has shifted, as the decisions below demonstrate.Courie v. Alcoa Wheel & Forged Products, No. 07-4440 (6th Cir. Aug. 18, 2009): Here's the incident that launched two lawsuits --"In 2003, someone left an inappropriate note on an Alcoa cafeteria table where African-American employees tended to sit. In its investigation into the incident, an employee of Alcoa's human resources department spoke with Courie, who denied leaving the note. Recalling who he did sit with at lunch that day, Courie, unable to recall the employee's name, sai

For decades, courts have given federal agencies broad discretion in promulgating regulations to enforce statutes pursuant to the Chevron doctrine. But in recent years, the Supreme Court, under its “major questions doctrine,” has gone from trimming agencies’ discretion to carving off huge chunks of agency authority. Based on this trend, special education services as set forth in regulations issued pursuant to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. 794 (“Section 504”) would be unlikely to survive the Court’s chopping block.The History Of The Chevron DoctrineIn Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 840 (1984), a rare 6-0 decision, the Court granted federal agencies authority to “fill in” undefined or ambiguous statutory terms set by Congress. In Chevron the Court reviewed Clean Air Act (CAA) regulations that were promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and challenged by the Natural Resources Defense Counsel (NRDC) as not authorized by the CAA.Under the statutory terms of the CAA, states were required to establish a permit program for stationary sources of air pollution from manufacturing plants, but the statute did not allow permits to be issued unless several conditions were met. Chevron, at 840. The EPA then promulgated regulations which allowed states to treat a plant which had several pollution-emitting devices as if the plant was under a “bubble,” effectively aggregating the pollut

A recent Statement of Interest filed earlier this week by the Department of Justice in a federal prisoner lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia should serve as an important reminder to employers and federal funding recipients that they may be required to accommodate transgender individuals under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794. Since the United States Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, employers have been prohibited from discriminating against transgender individuals under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, protections for transgender individuals diagnosed with gender dysphoria–defined as a “clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning” resulting from the incongruence between gender identity and assigned sex—under the ADA and Rehabilitation Act continue to be unclear. The difference as to which statute applies is meaningful because the latter two require accommodations, whereas Title VII does not. Reasonable accommodations could include allowing a transgender employee to have a name tag with their chosen, non-legal name; use the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity; or take time off for gender-affirming surgery.Protections for transgender individuals under the ADA and Rehabilitation Act have

mandates undermine the Bill of Rights not only ignore logic, they ignore clear precedents involving other vaccines.Indeed, we think that observing the treatment of other vaccines, free of the fog of political warfare, might help clarify thinking on vaccine mandates. Perhaps people can at least doff their tin foil hats temporarily. In Goe v. Zucker, 43 F.4th 19(2d Cir. 2022), the Second Circuit reviewed a proposed class action challenging the scope of medical exemptions to New York’s mandatory school immunization requirements. Prior to June 2019, New York allowed exemptions from the immunization requirements for both nonmedical and medical reasons. But after a big measles outbreak, New York repealed the nonmedical exemption (as we said in our vaccine post last week: yay) and clarified the medical exemption. The plaintiffs filed a lawsuit, contending that the new vaccine regulations violated their fourteenth amendment due process rights, as well as section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 USC section 794. The district court dismissed the complaint and the plaintiffs appealed to the Second Circuit. Under the new immunization regulation, a child will be exempted from the vaccination requirement if a state-licensed physician “certified that such immunization may be detrimental to [the] child’s health.” The certification must contain “sufficient information to identify a medical contraindication to a specific immunization.” The plaintiffs in Goe claimed that their kids suffered from diseases and disabilities that impaired their immune systems. Some also claimed family histories of adverse reactions to vaccines. Most of the plaintiff requests for exemptions were denied. The grounds supplied for such denials were usually along the lines of lack of specificity. And then just like that we are plunged into constitutional law. The plaintiffs attacked the new immunization regulations both on their face and as applied.In their facial challenge, the plaintiffs claimed that the regulations interfer

This guidance reminds retail pharmacies that, as recipients of federal financial assistance, they are prohibited under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (Section 1557), 42 U.S.C. 18116, from excluding an individual from participation in, denying them the benefits of, or otherwise subjecting themto discrimination based on sex and other bases (i.e., race, color, national origin, age, and disability) in their programs and activities. Further, under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504), 29 U.S.C. 794, recipients of federal financial assistance are prohibited from discriminating on the basis of disability.This guidance notes that discrimination against pregnant people on the basis of their pregnancy or related conditions is a form of sex discrimination. Under federal civil rights law, pregnancy discrimination includes discrimination based on current pregnancy, past pregnancy, potential or intended pregnancy, and medical conditions related to pregnancy or childbirth.

BackgroundEnacted on March 23, 2010, Section 1557 of the ACA prohibits any healthcare program or activity, any part of which is receiving federal financial assistance (interpreted at the time to include insurance companies, health systems or hospitals, and individual providers) from discrimination in specific health programs or activities. In defining what constitutes discrimination, Section 1557 incorporated existing federal civil rights laws, specifically, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (race, color, national origin), Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (sex), the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, 42 USC § 200d et seq. (race, color, national origin), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (disability) and 29 USC § 794 (disability), and applied such protections to federally funded health programs and activities. On May 18, 2016, based on its interpretation of the statutory prohibition of discrimination “on the basis of sex,” HHS finalized a key provision defining sex discrimination as including discrimination based on sex stereotyping, gender expression, gender identity and termination of pregnancy, among other things (2016 Final Rule).

To avoid potential civil and criminal liability, health care providers should seek legal guidance to ensure their adopted guidelines use objective criteria to allocate resources, rather than discriminating against a specific class of people.See 29 U.S.C. § 794. James Lockhart, Annotation, Who is recipient of, and what constitutes program or activity receiving, federal financial assistance for purposes of § 504 of Rehabilitation Act (19 U.S.C.A. § 794), which prohibits any program or activity receiving financial assistance from discriminating on basis of disability, 160 A.L.R. Fed. 297 (Originally published 2000)See U.S.C. § 12101 (a)(3) 42 U.S.C. § 5151(a)See e.g. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 12-563 Valerie Gutmann Koch, J.D. & Beth E. Roxland, J.D., M. Bioethics, Unique Proposals for Limiting Legal Liability and Encouraging Adherence to Ventilator Allocation Guidelines in an Influenza Pandemic, 14 DePaul J. Health Care L. 467, 474 (2013) Wash. Rev. Code Ann. § 7.70.050 (July 22, 2011) 26 Ill. Law and Prac. Medicine and Health Care Professionals §5 (January 2020 Update) Valerie Gutmann Koch, J.D. & Beth E. Roxland, J.D., M. Bioethics, Unique Proposals for Limiting Legal Liability and Encouraging Adherence to Ventilator Allocation Guideline

Section 805(a) of the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3605(a), makes it unlawful for anyone in the residential real-estate business "to discriminate against any person in making available such a transaction ... because of ... handicap". The Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794, says that "[n]o otherwise qualified individual with a disability ... shall, solely by reason of her or his disability, be excluded from the participation in ... or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance". Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12182(a) provides that "[n]o individual shall be discriminated against on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment of" places of public accommodation.

See, as to Title IX, 34 C.F.R. § 106.2(g); 13 C.F.R. § 113.105), as to Title VI, 34 C.F.R. § 100.13(f); 13 C.F.R. § 112.2(b), and as to ADA, 13 C.F.R. § 117.3(h)(1) and 34 C.F.R. § 110.3, et seq. Although not explicitly stated in the regulations in the same manner as for these other non-discrimination statutes, the plain language of the CARES Act and Section 504 (see Pub. L. 116-136, Title I, et seq., and 29 U.S.C. § 794(a)) would result in Section 504 being deemed to apply to loans administered to schools by the SBA.

Rejecting the claims of the plaintiff, an assistant professor who sought more than six months leave after being diagnosed with and beginning treatment for cancer, the Tenth Circuit found that this policy did not itself violate the Rehabilitation Act. Hwang v. Kansas State University, No. 13-3070 (10th Cir. May 29, 2014).The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended in 1992 and 1998, 29 U.S.C. § 794(a), prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability by the federal government, federal contractors and by recipients of federal financial assistance. As a recipient of federal funding, Kansas State University is covered by the Rehabilitation Act.