Case ID: f-appx_70/html/0630-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "NYGAARD, Circuit Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Elberta Bernice LIEBERMAN, v. State of DELAWARE; Family Court of Delaware, Appellants.
    No. 01-3540.
    United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.
    Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a) July 7, 2003.
    Decided July 14, 2003.
    Before NYGAARD, SMITH, and GREENBERG, Circuit Judges.
   OPINION OF THE COURT

NYGAARD, Circuit Judge.

Appellee, Elberta Bernice Lieberman, who had worked in a variety of positions at the Family Court of the State of Delaware for twenty years, filed a complaint with the EEOC claiming disability discrimination by her supervisor. The EEOC dismissed Lieberman’s complaint, and sent her a right-to sue letter. In 1996, Lieberman then sued the State of Delaware and the Family Court of the State of Delaware, and her complaint contains claims under (1) Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq., (2) Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 20 U.S.C. § 701 et seq., (3) the anti-retaliation provisions of the ADA, and (4) the anti-retaliation provisions of the Rehabilitation Act. The District Court granted the State’s motion to dismiss Lieberman’s Title II claims on the basis of Eleventh Amendment immunity but denied the State’s motion to dismiss Lieberman’s Rehabilitation Act claims. The State of Delaware appealed. Since we find that the District Court had jurisdiction over the Rehabilitation Act claims and that Koslow v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 302 F.3d 161 (3d Cir.2002), controls the Rehabilitation Act issue, we will affirm.

First, appellants argue that, because Article II, § 2, clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution vests the Supreme Court with original jurisdiction where a state is a party, the District Court lacks jurisdiction to hear the suit. Appellants do not mention, however, the well-established principle that Congress can give lower federal courts concurrent jurisdiction over matters where the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction. Ames v. Kansas, 111 U.S. 449, 4 S.Ct. 437, 28 L.Ed. 482 (1884). In fact, ever since the Judiciary Act of 1789, Congress has assumed that the constitutional grant of original jurisdiction to the Supreme Court could be made concurrent with the jurisdiction of the lower federal courts. We maintain the unremarkable position that 28 U.S.C. § 1331 properly provides the District Court with jurisdiction over this matter.

Turning to the Eleventh Amendment issue, we note that, while this case was pending with us, but before briefing, we decided Koslow v. Pennsylvania, 302 F.3d 161 (3d Cir.2002). In Koslow, a disability discrimination case under § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, we had to determine whether the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had waived its sovereign immunity by accepting certain federal funds for the Department of Corrections. Koslow, 302 F.3d at 165. We determined that Congress could require a state to waive its immunity to suit under the Rehabilitation Act as a condition for receiving federal funds and had done so. Id. at 172. Since the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had accepted federal financial assistance under the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, and provided these federal funds to the Department of Corrections, we concluded that the Commonwealth had waived immunity for § 504 claims against its Department of Corrections under the Rehabilitation Act. Id. at 172.

Our decision in Koslow is on all fours with this case. At all relevant times, Lieberman worked in an activity or program of the Family Court that is alleged to be a recipient and beneficiary of federal financial assistance. We therefore affirm the District Court’s thoughtful determination that the appellants have waived their Eleventh Amendment immunity, and that the appellants’ motion to dismiss Lieberman’s claims under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act should have been denied. 
      
      . In 1997, at the request of Lieberman, the District Court stayed this matter for additional EEOC investigation. A year later, the EEOC dismissed the complaint and sent another right-to-sue letter.