The Supreme Court Limits Discrimination Claims For Emotional Distress
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the dismissal of a discrimination lawsuit filed by a deaf, legally blind woman against a physical therapy business that wouldn’t provide an American Sign Language interpreter for her appointments.
In a 6-3 ruling with conservatives in the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that businesses that receive federal health care money can’t be sued for discrimination under the Affordable Care Act when the harm alleged is emotional, not financial.
Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in dissent that people who suffer discrimination often feel humiliation or embarrassment. “It is difficult to square the Court’s holding with the basic purposes that antidiscrimination laws seek to serve. One such purpose, as I have said, is to vindicate ‘human dignity and not mere economics,’” Breyer wrote, citing an opinion from his onetime boss, Justice Arthur Goldberg, in a key Civil Rights-era case.
