Opinion ID: 425177
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: analysis of section 504

Text: 20 The essence of section 504 is a single sentence forbidding discrimination under federally assisted programs against otherwise qualified handicapped individuals solely by reason of their handicap. Because it is both ambiguous and lacking in specifics, its scope and effect have been an enigma since section 504 was enacted. Prior to the Supreme Court's decision in Southeastern Community College v. Davis, 442 U.S. 397, 99 S.Ct. 2361, 60 L.Ed.2d 980 (1979), one possible construction of the statute was that it guaranteed eligibility to all handicapped persons who could meet the requirements of a particular program except for any limitations imposed by their handicap. Id. at 406, 99 S.Ct. at 2367. Under this interpretation, a blind person possessing all the qualifications for driving a bus except sight could be said to be 'otherwise qualified' for the job of driving. Id. at 407 n. 7, 99 S.Ct. at 2367 n. 7. In Davis, however, a unanimous Supreme Court rejected that interpretation, holding instead that, 21 An otherwise qualified person is one who is able to meet all of a program's requirements in spite of his handicap. 22 Id. at 406, 99 S.Ct. at 2367 (emphasis supplied). The Court concluded that section 504 required the evenhanded treatment of qualified ... persons but did not impose an affirmative-action obligation on all recipients of federal funds. Id., 410-11, 99 S.Ct. at 2369. 23 Following Davis, the District of Columbia Circuit struck down an extensive DOT regulation promulgated in 1979 requiring that every mode of transportation in a mass transit system be made accessible to the handicapped. American Public Transit Association v. Lewis, 655 F.2d 1272 (D.C.Cir.1981). The affirmative steps required by this regulation were held to exceed the directive under section 504. 8 24 In ordering affirmative relief here, the district court distinguished Davis on two grounds. First, the court stated that unlike the plaintiff in Davis, plaintiffs here were qualified because there simply are no qualifications for riding a bus. 25 Davis holds only that section 504 does not compel educational institutions to modify substantially existing programs to permit the participation of the handicapped. It does not define the scope of section 504 in contexts in which the handicapped are admittedly qualified to participate. 26 549 F.Supp. at 606. Second, the district court distinguished Davis 's refusal to require an affirmative action admissions program for the handicapped on the ground that the mass transit context presented different considerations. The court quoted from the Second Circuit's recent decision in Dopico v. Goldschmidt, 687 F.2d 644, 652 (2d Cir.1982): 27 In the context of public transportation and the handicapped, denial of access cannot be lessened simply by eliminating discriminatory selection criteria; because the barriers to equal participation are physical rather than abstract, some sort of action must be taken to remove them, if only in the area of new construction or purchasing. 28 The district court held that so long as it was merely requiring modification of an existing program, and so long as it did not place undue financial and administrative burdens on defendant, it was empowered by section 504 to order affirmative relief to the handicapped wherever it found, upon balancing costs and benefits, that the overall costs were reasonable in light of the anticipated benefits. 549 F.Supp. at 607, 610-11. The court then found that while the costs of adding 42 lift-equipped buses to RIPTA's fleet are not insubstantial ... [being] more than enough to pay for two additional non-accessible buses. ... the [c]ourt cannot say that two additional buses for the able-bodied public are more important than 42 buses that wheelchair users, as well as the general public, can use. Id. at 614. The court accordingly determined, contrary to the judgment of Rhode Island's transit authority, that 42 buses should be fitted with wheelchair elevators and bays at a cost of more than $320,000, and that various other actions in addition to those already taken by RIPTA should be taken to assist handicapped riders. It reached this result notwithstanding RIPTA's compliance with current federal DOT regulations approving annual expenditures of 3.5 percent as constituting a satisfactory level of special efforts to provide transportation for the handicapped. 29 We understand the humane reasons which prompted the district court in this case. We conclude, however, that its orders to install wheelchair lifts and bays in the buses exceed the authority of section 504 as construed in Davis. The core holding in Davis is that section 504 does not impose the duty nor confer the authority on a district court to engage in affirmative action. To be sure, the Davis Court acknowledged parenthetically that the line between a lawful refusal to extend affirmative action and illegal discrimination against handicapped persons may not always be clear. The Court said, 30 It is possible to envision situations where an insistence on continuing past requirements and practices might arbitrarily deprive genuinely qualified handicapped persons of the opportunity to participate in a covered program. Technological advances can be expected to enhance opportunities to rehabilitate the handicapped or otherwise to qualify them for some useful employment. Such advances also may enable attainment of these goals without imposing undue financial and administrative burdens upon a state. Thus, situations may arise where a refusal to modify an existing program might become unreasonable and discriminatory. Identification of those instances where a refusal to accommodate the needs of a disabled person amounts to discrimination against the handicapped continues to be an important responsibility of HEW. 31 442 U.S. at 412-13, 99 S.Ct. at 2730. 32 But while Davis thus did not rule out the possibility of some affirmative relief in gray areas, its central message remained that section 504 does not impose the duty to engage in affirmative action. The Court said, 33 The language and structure of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 reflect a recognition by Congress of the distinction between the evenhanded treatment of qualified handicapped persons and affirmative efforts to overcome the disabilities caused by handicaps. 34 .... [N]either the language, purpose, nor history of Sec. 504 reveals an intent to impose an affirmative action obligation on all recipients of federal funds. 35 442 U.S. at 410-11, 99 S.Ct. at 2369. We are unable to square the above language with an order imposing a duty on RIPTA to spend over $320,000 on controversial lifts for its new buses. Congress, the Davis Court noted, knew how to provide for affirmative action in instances where it wished to do so. See Davis, 442 U.S. at 411, 99 S.Ct. at 2369. See also Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 27, 101 S.Ct. 1531, 1545, 67 L.Ed.2d 694 (1981). 36 The district court opined that Davis was inapposite because there simply are no qualifications for riding a bus. 549 F.Supp. at 606. Compare Ferris v. University of Texas at Austin, 558 F.Supp. 536, 539 (W.D.Texas 1983). But as the court's order indicates, wheelchair users cannot board and ride buses unless the buses are specially outfitted with lifts and wheelchair bays; thus, in this limited but important sense the plaintiff class is not qualified to use buses of the ordinary sort. And the cost of transforming ordinary buses into lift-equipped ones for which plaintiffs are qualified is, as the district court conceded, not insubstantial. 549 F.Supp. at 614. Semantics cannot hide the fact that the propriety of ordering significant affirmative action is at issue. And, to the extent Davis sanctions the imposing of any affirmative action, it does so only in situations where to do otherwise would be plainly arbitrary--where a refusal to modify an existing program might become unreasonable and discriminatory. 442 U.S. at 413, 99 S.Ct. at 2370. We do not believe that RIPTA's refusal to equip its 42 new buses with lifts and wheelchair bays falls within that narrow category. The record shows that there is an ongoing dispute among experts over whether fixed route buses will attract sufficient numbers of mobility impaired riders to make such improvements preferable to alternative options, such as paratransit. While the district court's choice is doubtless a reasonable one, its virtues are not so self-evident that the failure to adopt it can be called ipso facto unreasonable and discriminatory. 37 There is yet another reason for doubting the correctness of the district court's approach. In Davis, when discussing those situations where a stubborn refusal to take non-burdensome affirmative steps might be tantamount to illegal discrimination, the Supreme Court stated that [i]dentification of those instances where a refusal to accommodate the needs of a disabled person amounts to discrimination against the handicapped continues to be an important responsibility of HEW, (emphasis supplied), 442 U.S. at 413, 99 S.Ct. at 2370. The quoted language suggests that the relevant federal agency--not the court--has the chief responsibility to identify those instances where a refusal to accommodate the needs of a disabled person amounts to discrimination --and to determine any necessary affirmative steps. DOT is the relevant agency here, as HEW was the relevant agency in Davis. 9 For this reason in particular, we believe the district court erred in failing to give weight to the fact that RIPTA, having spent 3.5 percent of its section 5 UMTA funds on programs for the mobility impaired, is deemed by DOT under its regulations to have complied with section 504. 38 It must be borne in mind that DOT's responsibilities to the handicapped are delineated not only under section 504 but more explicitly and extensively in UMTA. The regulation in question relates to both statutes. Given Congress's delegation of responsibility to DOT and the lack of any legislative standards to guide a court in this area, we believe the district court should have hesitated to order RIPTA to engage in expenditures going beyond the 3.5 percent level endorsed by DOT in its regulation. 10 39 Dependence upon the responsible federal executive agency to flesh out any affirmative action obligation imposed by section 504 seems to us far preferable to a post hoc, case by case cost-benefit analysis undertaken by individual district courts around the nation. The district court's approach was to decide for itself, after hearing, what long- and short-range measures for the Rhode Island handicapped would be cost effective and fair, and then to label RIPTA's failure to have adopted these measures as discriminatory. 549 F.Supp. 607. In doing this, it had to determine which of various hotly disputed transportation policies would best serve the needs of the mobility-impaired handicapped and what level of expenditures would not impose undue burdens upon the taxpayers. 40 If the only question was whether the able district judge had, in this instance, struck a sensible balance in respect to Rhode Island's transportation needs for its handicapped, we might affirm. But to do so, we would have to create the precedent that judges, not state or federal administrators, are charged with devising the nuts and bolts of transportation programs for the handicapped. 11 Such a policy would not only be novel, it would be highly questionable. Commentators have pointed out that judges are not selected nor are they trained as administrators, and the judicial process is not structured as an organ of governance. See generally D. Horowitz, The Courts and Social Policy 59, 257 (1977). If judges eschew the DOT regulation and are themselves to have the last word in this area, they will be doing so totally without legal standard or guidance, since none whatever is provided in the statute. Instead of administering the rule of law, they will be engaged in making personal policy assessments indistinguishable from those made by administrators in executive agencies. 41 Deciding what type and quantity of special services will provide the handicapped with a meaningful opportunity to benefit from public expenditures on mass transit is an extremely difficult task. The district court recognized that [i]t simply is not possible to quantify in a precise fashion the number of wheelchair buses that RIPTA is required to purchase or retrofit. Nor is it possible with any mathematical certainty to decide on the number of accessible routes that Sec. 504 requires. 549 F.Supp. at 611. Nevertheless, the court says that this uncertainty does not justify abandoning the task. Id. 42 The only standard the district court put forward for deciding what additional equipment it would require RIPTA to buy was its cost-benefit formula. Yet as the court candidly said, [i]t is regrettable that the record does not contain any hard data demonstrating the extent to which ridership will increase by making more of RIPTA's buses accessible. 549 F.Supp. at 613. The absence of hard data, however, acerbates the problem because the statutory terminology and the regulations do not indicate the parameters within which such an analysis should or could be made in the first place. 43 Were we to affirm the district court's approach, state and federal administrators would be left without any way to know in advance which of their plans would later pass judicial muster and which would be struck down, often at great cost in delay and wasted effort. The cost-benefit test articulated by the district court does not provide the type of predictable standard upon which courts and administrators can rely to prevent judgments from being mere personal predilections. The suggested test requires a balancing of costs and benefits: if the overall costs seem to the court reasonable in light of the anticipated benefits, and the financial and administrative burdens seem not undue, then a failure to make a particular purchase will constitute discrimination prohibited by section 504. Assuming that reliable data were available on which such an analysis could be performed, this test lacks any mention of the parameters within which the cost-benefit test is to be conducted. The district court says that [s]ociety will surely be enriched by [handicapped persons'] participation in the work force and in the cultural life of the community. 549 F.Supp. at 614. While we agree that it is a desirable goal to help the handicapped become active in the social, economic, and political affairs of the community, we are at a loss to place a price tag or value on such participation. The district court concedes that making public transportation accessible is not worth unlimited cost, 549 F.Supp. at 610, but the standard it proposes gives no indication of when enough has been done. Further, the type and nature of data presented to courts on which such a cost-benefit analysis could be performed may be insufficient and surely will vary by locality. The absence of hard data in this case forced the district court to offer an educated guess as to where the balance of cost and benefit should lie. Even if Rhode Island purchased 42 buses with lifts, under this test it would remain uncertain whether the next purchase of buses should include chairlifts, and if so, how many. After Rhode Island conducted the proposed cost-benefit analysis, anyone whose calculation gave a different result could sue, and a district court judge would determine on an elaborate record after a long and expensive trial what his personal calculation of costs and benefits required. 44 In contrast, the appendix to the regulation quantifies the obligation of local transit authorities. It advises them in advance what is expected, and unlike the edicts of courts, the regulations can be modified from time to time in the light of experience in some orderly fashion. 45 We do not believe, moreover, that the DOT regulation should be ignored simply because in a particular case it does not achieve what the court regards as an optimal balance between costs and benefits. Such demands of a regulation drafted for general applicability are unrealistic. The agency may well have determined that a 3.5 percent expenditure would, on balance, be the best spending level in the vast number of cases. The purpose of having such a figure will be defeated if someone can always challenge a state's spending decisions for the handicapped on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis in the particular case. 46 We conclude, therefore, that the district court erred in ordering affirmative relief based on its own cost-benefit analysis; to the extent Congress authorized modest affirmative relief under section 504 in situations where the line between overt discrimination and affirmative action is hard to draw, Davis, 442 U.S. at 412-13, 99 S.Ct. at 2370, we think primary guidance must come from the regulations promulgated by the federal agency responsible for overseeing the federal funds being used by the state or local agency. Some deference is also owed to the policy choices of state and local agencies. Judicial review, to the extent authorized, is limited to the more usual role of disapproving actions found to be illegal, arbitrary or capricious. With these considerations in mind, we examine the relief ordered by the district court. 47