Opinion ID: 789693
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Commitment to Action

Text: 28 In Frederick L., stressing that what is at issue is compliance with two federal statutes enacted to protect disabled persons, we read Olmstead' s third prong to require that a state agency asserting a fundamental alteration defense be prepared to make a commitment to action in a manner for which it can be held accountable by the courts. Id. at 500. That is, the fundamental alteration defense cannot be read to exempt in toto noncomplying agencies. A state cannot meet an allegation of noncompliance simply by replying that compliance would be too costly or would otherwise fundamentally alter its noncomplying programs. Any program that runs afoul of the integration mandate would be fundamentally altered if brought into compliance. Read this broadly, the fundamental alteration defense would swallow the integration mandate whole. See Townsend, 328 F.3d at 518-19 ([P]olicy choices that isolate the disabled cannot be upheld solely because offering integrated services would change the segregated way in which existing services are provided.... [S]uch a broad reading of fundamental alteration regulation would render the protection against isolation of the disabled substanceless.). 29 Instead, the only sensible reading of the integration mandate consistent with the Court's Olmstead opinion allows for a fundamental alteration defense only if the accused agency has developed and implemented a plan to come into compliance with the ADA and RA. Frederick L., 364 F.3d at 500. When such a plan exists, a remedy that would force the agency to abandon or alter its long-term compliance efforts could sacrifice widespread compliance for immediate, individualized relief. Imposing such a remedy might be penny-wise and pound-foolish. Thus, as the Supreme Court explained, the larger plan must be taken into account in assessing the immediate need: [s]ensibly construed, the fundamental-alteration [defense] would allow the State to show that, in the allocation of available resources, immediate relief for the plaintiffs would be inequitable, given the responsibility the State has undertaken for the care and treatment of a large and diverse population of persons with mental disabilities. Olmstead, 527 U.S. at 604, 119 S.Ct. 2176. The states have undertaken this responsibility in part because they are obliged to do so under applicable federal law, including the ADA and RA. It would make no sense to exempt a state from liability under the ADA and RA in a particular case on the basis of its need to fulfill its larger obligation to the mentally disabled as a whole while at the same time relieving the state of its larger obligation. Any interpretation of the fundamental alteration defense that would shield a state from liability in a particular case without requiring a commitment generally to comply with the integration mandate would lead to this bizarre result. 30 When an agency has implemented a sufficient compliance plan ( i.e., when it has demonstrated a commitment to comply with the ADA and RA), we must be wary of judicial mandates that could thwart or undermine the agency's authority to carry out that plan as it sees fit. 7 Yet when a person with standing brings suit alleging violation of the ADA and RA in a particular case, we discharge our responsibility by confirming that a general plan does exist and by imposing upon the agency, as a condition to the assertion of a fundamental alteration defense, the minimal burden of demonstrating that there will be ongoing progress toward community placement under the general plan. Frederick L., 364 F.3d at 500. Without such a preliminary showing, an agency cannot establish a fundamental alteration defense. 31