Bacon v. City of Richmond, No. 06-1347 (4th Cir. Jan. 23, 2007)
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has ruled that a settlement agreement between disabled students and the Richmond, Virginia, school board that required the board to retrofit all its schools to bring them into compliance with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) did not impose the same duty on the City of Richmond in the absence of a finding or admission of liability. After the plaintiffs sued the school board alleging that the school’s district’s facilities were in violation of the ADA, the board entered into a settlement agreement in which it agreed to bring its buildings into compliance. However, the agreement included a provision that board’s obligation was contingent on its receiving funding from the City of Richmond. A federal district court ruled that because the city provides capital funding to the schools, the city was a necessary party to the settlement. The court granted summary judgment in the plaintiffs’ favor and ordered the city to "ensure that the Richmond City Public Schools become ADA-compliant" within five years.
The Fourth Circuit reversed, concluding that because the district court had not found "that the City excluded plaintiffs from receiving the benefits of its services or programs or that the City had in any way discriminated against plaintiffs," it could not impose a remedy on the city, because "the district court’s remedial order undermines the basic precept of law … that remedies may be imposed only on responsible parties." The appellate court pointed out that the city exercised no operational control over the school buildings or school activities and services. The lower court’s order also ran contrary to Virginia law, which places primary responsibility for schools in the hands of local school boards, the appeals court determined, rejecting the implication in the lower court’s order that the city has discretionary authority over the schools. The Fourth Circuit stated that the district court’s "remedial order issued here ascribes to the City a discretionary function which local law precludes," adding, "the separate corporate bodies established by Virginia law are no subterfuge; they were not intended to circumvent any federally created right. To the contrary, Virginia’s longstanding division of authority serves legitimate state purposes. Virginia could certainly have concluded that to entrust the School Board and the City with the same responsibilities vis-a-vis education would be like one too many cooks stirring the broth." The court rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that city could be ordered to satisfy the legal obligation as a funder of the local school system. The school board receives funding from other sources, the court noted, expressing concern that "making funding entities responsible for the statutory violations of funding recipients would stretch the contours of Title II," which "does not contemplate funding liability for an independent public entity that neither controls the challenged services nor discriminated against plaintiffs because of disability." The court also found that the plaintiffs’ theory of liability would undermine arms-length settlement negotiations, because "armed with the knowledge that a third-party funder would be on the hook, [school] administrators would have diminished reason to dispute liability."
Bacon v. City of Richmond, No. 06-1347 (4th Cir. Jan. 23, 2007)
[Full opinion]
[Editor’s Note: Background on the suit is below at the first link. The federally funded National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities (NCEF) has compiled resources on accessibility in school facilities and federal requirements at the link below.]
[NSBA School Law pages on settlement of lawsuit]
[NCEF accessibility resources]