Opinion ID: 4533587
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Applicability of the Rehabilitation Act

Text: The district court rejected Ms. Marks’s claim under the Rehabilitation Act in part because Intervention had not received federal funds. We disagree with this ruling because the district court should have 12 focused on whether the CDOC and CDCJ (not Intervention) had received federal funds. The Rehabilitation Act applies only if the defendant received federal funds. 29 U.S.C. § 794(a) (2012); 4 see Barnes v. Gorman, 536 U.S. 181, 184–85 (2002) (stating that “§ 504 of the Rehabilitation Act prohibits discrimination against the disabled by recipients of federal funding, including private organizations”). In district court, the parties agreed that the CDOC and CDCJ had received federal funding. The district court nonetheless concluded sua sponte that the Rehabilitation Act didn’t apply because Intervention hadn’t received federal funds. Ms. Marks challenges this ruling, arguing that  the district court should have focused on whether the CDOC and CDCJ had received federal funds,  the CDOC and CDCJ were subject to the Rehabilitation Act regardless of whether the federal funds had been used for community corrections, and  the CDOC and CDCJ admitted in district court that they had received federal funding. We agree with Ms. Marks. The district court should have considered whether the CDOC and CDCJ had received federal funds. The court had no 4 This section was amended on July 22, 2014, after Ms. Marks’s regression to prison. But this amendment does not affect the outcome. 13 reason to muddy application of the Rehabilitation Act to the CDOC and CDCJ by focusing on the lack of federal funding to a third-party like Intervention. See Henrietta D. v. Bloomberg, 331 F.3d 261, 272 (2d Cir. 2003) (observing that to establish a Rehabilitation Act violation, plaintiffs need only show “that the defendants receive federal funding” (emphasis added)). Because the CDOC and CDCJ received federal funding, we conclude that the Rehabilitation Act applies.