Court Opinion

ID: 9433861
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:41:30.801456+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:44.374760
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
Unjustified disparate treatment, in this case, “unjustified institutional isolation,” constitutes discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. See ante, at 600. If a plaintiff requests relief that requires modification of a State’s services or programs, the State may assert, as an affirmative defense, that the requested modification would cause a fundamental alteration of a State’s services and programs. In this case, the Court of Appeals appropriately remanded for consideration of the State’s affirmative defense. On remand, the District Court rejected the State’s “fundamental-alteration defense.” See ante, at 596, n. 7. If the District Court was wrong in concluding that costs unrelated to the treatment of L. C. and E. W. do not support such a defense in this ease, that arguable error should be corrected either by the Court of Appeals or by this Court in review of that decision. In my opinion, therefore, we should simply affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals. *608But because there are not five votes for that disposition, I join the Court’s judgment and Parts I, II, and III-A of its opinion. Cf. Bragdon v. Abbott, 524 U. S. 624, 655-656 (1998) (Stevens, J., concurring); Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91, 134 (1945) (Rutledge, J., concurring in result).