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Beranda / Album / The Olmstead v. LC & EW Supreme Court Decision, June 22 1999 25
Tanggal pembuatan / 2013 / July
- ADAPT (1179)
[added text lays over the document reading This Victory by ADAPT] [original document reads] Supreme Court of the United States Olmstead, Commissioner, Georgia Department of Human Resources, et al [illegible] by zimring, guardian [illegible] and next friends [illegible] Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh District No 98-[illegible] argued April 21, 1999--Decided June 22, 1999 In the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), Congress described the isolation and segregation of individuals with disabilities as a serious and pervasive form of discrimination. 42 U. S. C. 12101 (a) (2), (5). Title II of the ADA, which proscribes discrimination in the provision of public services, specifies, inter alia, that no qualified individual with a disability shall, "by reason of such disability," be excluded from participation in, or be denied the benefits of, a public entity's services, programs, or activities. 12132. Congress instructed the Attorney General to issue regulations implementing Title II's discrimination proscription. See 12134 (a). One such regulation, known as the "integration regulation," requires a "public entity [to administer...programs...in the most integrated setting appropriate to the needs of qualified individuals with disabilities." 28 CFR 35.130 (d). A further prescription, here called the "reasonable-modifications regulation," requires public entities to "make reasonable modifications" to avoid "discrimination..on the basis of disability" but does not require - ADAPT (1180)
[added text lays over the document reading This Victory by ADAPT] [original document reads] Supreme Court of the United States No. 98-536 Tommy Olmstead, Commissioner, Georgia Department of Human Resources, et al., Petitioners v. L. C., by Jonathan Zimring, guardian ad litem and next friend, et al. On writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit [illegible date] Justice Ginsburg announced [illegible] and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts [illegible] with respect to Part III-B, in which O'Connor, Souter, and Breyer, joined. This case concerns the proper construction of the anti-discrimination provision contained in the public services portion (Title II) of the Americans with Disabilities Act [illegible] Stat. 337, 42 U.S.C. 12132. Specifically, we confront the question whether the [illegible] may require placement of persons with mental disabilities in community settings [illegible] in institutions. The answer, we hold, is a qualified yes. Such action is in order when the State's treatment professionals have determined that community placement is appropriate, the transfer from institutional care to a less restrictive setting is not opposed by the affected individual, and the placement can be reasonably accommodated, taking into account the resources available to the State and the needs of others with [text cuts off] [text resumes] For the reasons stated we conclude that, under Title II of the ADA, States are required to provide community-based treatment for persons with mental disabilities when the State's treatment professionals determine that such placement is appropriate, the affected persons do not oppose such treatment, and the placement can be reasonably accommodated, taking into account the resources available to the State and the needs of others with mental disabilities. The judgement of the Eleventh Circuit is therefore affirmed in part and vacated in part, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. - ADAPT (1175)
[graphic footprint on an American disabilities flag] [Heading] Don't tread on the ADA [Subheading] Integration NOT Segregation Join ADAPT and THOUSANDS OF DISABILITY RIGHTS ACTIVISTS for a day supporting disability rights and opposing the "Olmstead vs L.C. and E.W." threat to community living. Support the ADA's "Most Integrated Setting" mandate -the peoples' right to choose where we live and receive support services. Send a message to the Supreme Court Justices, Congress and the Clinton Administration. Where: Supreme Court Steps 1 First Street N.E. - Washington, D.C. When: Wednesday, May 12th, 1999. Arrive 11:30 am, Begin noon. For Information, call (512) 442-0252 or (303) 733-9324 adapt@adapt.org ACTION REMINDER - ADAPT National Action May 8th through May 13th - ADAPT (1186)
Doc-06-93 01:00P We spend over $50 billion a year on long-term care services, that's a lot of money. But only 20% of that goes to community living. Well, I say, at the very least, we need a level playing field. We have to find a way to let the money follow the person so each person can be free. We need to create systems that have people with disabilities at the center, in control of services of their own choice. We need to replace the medical model of service delivery with the independent living model that is what people want, and let us be clear it saves money. And we need to convince all those in this capitol and in state capitols and in corporate boardrooms around the nation one simple fact: self determination is in America's self interest. I know for many of you here today, this is not a matter of developing policy it is a literal struggle for your lives, and the lives of your friends and colleagues. I know many of you have lived in institutions yourselves. You know the frustration, you know the indignity, you know the anger that comes from not living free lives in the community Let me say this to each one of you: Your struggle for freedom has not been in vain. Your fight to gain the attention of those of us here in Washington is working. But our work isn't done. We need to educate. We need to say no to legislating by fear and anecdote. And we need to remind our elected officials that we still have promises to keep. And let's remember this isn't about Democrats vs. Republicans. - ADAPT (1187)
Yes to inclusion. Yes to independence. Yes to empowerment. And that means yes to personal assistance services. Americans with disabilities deserve first-rate personal assistance services, not second class status. And that is why all of us who fought so hard for the ADA arc watching the Supreme Court for their decision in the Olmstead case. Let me make my position on that case crystal clear to you. I believe that any person who receives Medicaid funding for long-term services has the right to receive those services in the most integrated setting appropriate to his or her needs. And I believe that the ADA clearly protects that right. Keeping a person in an institution when that person is able to live in the community is discrimination, plain and simple. We all hope the Supreme Court agrees. Make no mistake about it, we have made tremendous progress toward the goal of eliminating unnecessary institutional living and expanding community-based support. In addition to the ADA, our state institutions are a case in point. In 1968, only thirty years ago, our state institutions were bulging with over 228,000 men and women with disabilities. Now those same facilities house a little more than 57,000 people. This is undeniable progress for which we should all be proud. But many of those remaining 57,000 people and thousands more in nursing homes are still in institutions because of misguided federal policies. That is wrong, and it must change. - ADAPT (1181)
[title] Victory in Olmstead by Homer Page On June 22, 1999, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the Olmstead Case. Olmstead originated in Georgia and involved two women with disabilities who desired to live in an integrated setting. For the first time the court affirmed the right of persons with disabilities to live in the most appropriate integrated setting... - ADAPT (1174)
THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONAL WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 1999 [Headline] States Limited on Institutionalization [Subheading] U.S. Disabilities Act Requires Medical Justification Court Says By LINDA GREENHOUSE WASHINGTON, June 22 — Isolating people with disabilities in big state institutions when there is no medical reason for their confinement is a form of discrimination that violates Federal disabilities law, the Supreme Court ruled today. The 6-to-3 decision, in a case brought against the State of Georgia by two women with mental impairment, was a substantial victory for a disabilities rights movement that has looked to the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 as a tool for breaking down institutional walls that separate people with serious mental and physical problems from the larger community. The ruling affirmed, in most respects, a decision last year by the Federal appeals court in Atlanta, which held that states have a duty under the 1990 law to provide care in group homes when medically appropriate. In 1994, the Federal appeals court in Philadelphia, in the only other appellate decision on the subject, reached the same result. The Supreme Court's decision six months ago to hear Georgia's appeal in this case alarmed advocates for people with disabilities, who feared that the Court might steer the law in the opposite direction and reverse the nationwide trend toward deinstitutionalization. An unusually vigorous grass-roots campaign sprang up around the case, leading 15 of the 22 states that had originally supported Georgia to disavow the state's position in the Supreme Court. The case involved a 1995 lawsuit filed on behalf of Lois Curtis and Elaine Wilson, both of them mentally retarded and mentally ill, who sought state care outside the Georgia Regional Hospital, where they had lived off and on for years. Both remained in the hospital for several years after state doctors had concluded that they could be more appropriately cared for in small group homes. In some respects, the decision today was the Court's first rather than last, word on the subject, and it may require more cases to clarify the full dimensions of the ruling. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's majority opinion held that states' obligation to care for people in small, neighborhood based settings was limited to some degree by available resources. States are not required to close their big hospitals — which, the Court emphasized, may still be appropriate for some people — or to create group home programs that they do not now have. (In fact, though, every state now has such a program.) The decision interpreted a regulation that requires states to make "reasonable modifications" in their programs to avoid discriminating against people with disabilities, while at the same time providing that states need not make "fundamental" alterations. Justice Ginsburg said that if a state "were to demonstrate that it had a comprehensive, effectively working plan for placing qualified persons with mental disabilities in less restrictive settings, and a waiting list that moved at a reasonable pace not controlled by the state's endeavors to keep its institutions fully populated, the reasonable modifications standard would be met." [image] [image caption] Associated Press. The Court heard the case of Elaine Wilson, left, and Lois Curtis, mentally impaired women who sought care outside a state hospital. That interpretation did not give the states enough leeway to satisfy the three dissenting Justices. Justice Clarence Thomas joined in a dissenting opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Antonin Scalia, said the decision imposed "significant federalism costs" and failed to "respect the states' historical role as the dominant authority responsible for providing services to individuals with disabilities." Justice Thomas predicted that states would "now be forced to defend themselves in Federal court every time resources prevent the immediate placement of a qualified individual." He said that rather than addressing discrimination in any conventional sense, the majority was imposing its own "standard of care." [pulled quote] States must provide care in group homes when appropriate. [text resumes] The majority opinion was joined by Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, David H. Souter, John Paul Stevens and Stephen G. Breyer. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy concurred in a separate opinion, noting that "the depopulation of state mental hospitals has its dark side" and warning that the decision should not be interpreted "to drive those in need of medical care and treatment out of appropriate care and into settings with too little assistance and supervision." Justice Breyer also signed that part of Justice Kennedy's opinion. While the decision, Olmstead v. L.C., No. 98-536, referred throughout to mental disabilities, the ruling also applies to the states' obligations to people with serious physical disabilities. The decision interpreted Title II of the disabilities act, which prohibits state and local governments from discriminating against people or excluding them from programs "by reason of" their disabilities. A regulation issued by the Attorney General at Congress's direction, after the law's adoption, provides that "a public entity shall administer services, programs and activities in the most integrated setting appropriate to the needs of qualified individuals with disabilities," with "integrated setting" defined as "a setting that enables individuals with disabilities to interact with nondisabled persons to the fullest extent possible." Georgia argued that the two mentally impaired women involved in the case did not come within the disabilities law's protection because they had not been subjected to discrimination, which the state defined as unequal treatment. Justice Ginsburg said today that in the context of the Federal law, "unjustified isolation, we hold, is properly regarded as dis-crimination based on disability." ”Institutional placement of per-sons who can handle and benefit from community setting perpetuates unwarranted assumptions that per-sons so isolated are incapable or unworthy of participating in community life," Justice Ginsburg continued. She added that "confinement in an institution severely diminishes the everyday life activities of individuals, including family relations, social contacts, work options, economic independence, educational advancement and cultural enrichment." One of the two plaintiffs lives today in a three-person group home, and the other lives in her own apartment, with supportive services. Ira Burnim, the legal director of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, an organization here that coordinated Supreme Court briefs on the women's behalf, praised the decision. "This is the first time the Court has announced that needless institutionalization is a form of discrimination," he said in an interview, adding that the disabilities rights movement had been work-ing toward this goal for 30 years. - ADAPT (1185)
Disability policy know no party affiliation. We must solidify our base of support and expand it to new members. Let's never make disability a partisan issue. So go out and visit your representatives and your Senators. Keep the message simple and straight forward. Share your experiences. Tell your story. Together we will move forward. Together we will make change happen. And together we'll make personal assistance services available to all who need it. Thank you. - ADAPT (1194)
26A Denver Rocky Mountain News World & Nation Insidedenver.com/keyword: AP News Desk — (303). 892-2728 e-mail newsdesk@denver-rmn.com [Headline] Court rules in favor of disabled [Subheading] Supreme Court says group homes appropriate for some hospitalized mental patients By Linda Greenhouse The New York Times WASHINGTON Isolating people with dis-abilities in big state institutions when there is no medical reason for their confinement is a form of discrimination that violates federal dis-abilities law, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday. The 6-3 decision, in a case brought against the state of Georgia by two women with mental impairment, was a substantial victory for a disabilities rights movement. That movement has looked to the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 as a tool for breaking down institutional walls that separate people with serious mental and physical problems from the larger community. The ruling affirmed, in most respects, a decision last year by the federal appeals court m Atlanta, which held that states have a duty under the 1990 law to provide care in group homes when medically appropriate. In 1994 the federal appeals court in Philadelphia, in the only other appellate decision on [separate article begins] IN COLORADO Activists for the disabled in Colorado said Tuesday's Supreme Court decision is a major victory. "It's a critical step to show the state that people have the right to choose where and how they receive services and that segregated services will not be tolerated," said Joe Ehman, organizer with ADAPT, which works on issues for the disabled. "It says to (Gov. Bill) Owens that people have a right to choose where they live, and it's not the state's job to do that." Colorado was one of seven states that supported a Georgia law that kept two women in mental hospitals long after Georgia's department of human services recommended they be transferred to the community. Mike McLachlan, solicitor general with the Colorado Attorney General's office, said he had not seen the decision. However, he said he believes that the ruling will have little impact on Colorado. "Colorado already by law encourages community settings instead of institutions," he said. "The question is the speed by which the people who are in institutions must be integrated into the community." It was not known Tuesday how many people in Colorado would be affected. — Tillie Fong, News Staff Writer [this article ends] [originally article resumes] the subject, reached the same result. The Supreme Court's decision six months ago to hear Georgia's' appeal in this case alarmed advocates for people with disabilities, who feared that the court might steer the law in the opposite direction and reverse the nationwide trend toward deinstitutionalization. An unusually vigorous grass-roots campaign sprang up around the case, leading 15 of the 22 states that had originally supported Georgia to disavow the state's position in the Supreme Court. The case involved a 1995 lawsuit filed on behalf of Lois Curtis and Elaine Wilson, both of them mentally retarded and mentally ill, who sought state care outside the Georgia Regional Hospital, where they had lived, off and on, for years. Both remained in the hospital for sever-al years after state doctors had concluded that they could be more appropriately cared for in small group homes. In some respects, the decision Tuesday was the court's first, rather than last, word on the subject, and it may require more cases to clarify the full dimensions of the ruling. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's majority opinion held that states' obligation to care for people in small, neighborhood-based settings was limited to some degree by available resources. States are not required to close their big hospitals — which, the court stressed, may still be appropriate for some people — or to create group home programs that they do not now have. In fact, though, every state now has such a program. The decision interpreted a regulation that requires states to make "reasonable modifications" in their programs to avoid discriminating against people with disabilities, while at the same time providing that states heed not make "fundamental" alterations. - ADAPT (1185)
Disability policy know no party affiliation. We must solidify our base of support and expand it to new members. Let's never make disability a partisan issue. So go out and visit your representatives and your Senators. Keep the message simple and straight forward. Share your experiences. Tell your story. Together we will move forward. Together we will make change happen. And together we'll make personal assistance services available to all who need it. Thank you. - ADAPT (1182)
J. Joseph Curran, Jr. Attorney General Carmen M. Shepard Donna Hill Staton Deputy Attorneys General State of Maryland Office of the Attorney General Telefone No. (410) 576-6955 Writer's Direct Dial No. (410) 576-6318 January 14, 1999 Florida Attorney General's Office The Capitol, Suite PLO1 Tallahassee, Florida 323994-1050 Re: Olmstead v, LC and E. W, by Zimring Dear Attorney General: Please be advised that the State of Maryland will not be offering milieus support in the above-referearteed case. Sincerely, [signed] J. Joseph Corran, Jr. [typed J. Joseph Curran, jr. Attorney General JJC:dom - ADAPT (1190)
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General Mike Fisher Attorney General 15th floor, Strawberry Sq. Harrisburg, PA 17120 Fax: (717) 772-4526 Phone: (717) 787-1100 January 29, 1999 Stephanie A. Daniel Assistant Attorney General Attorney General's Office The Capitol Tallahassee, Florida 32399-1050 Via mall and fax Re: Olmstead v. L.C., No, 98-536 Dear Ms. Daniel: The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania does not wish to join the brief on the merits which Florida has prepared in the above case. Sincerely, [signed] Louis J. Rovelli [typed] Louis J. Rovelli Executive Deputy Attorney General Director, Civil Law Division Litigation Section JGK/hs - ADAPT (1183)
State of Mississippi Office of the Attorney General Mike Moore Attorney General Civil Litigation Section Robert L. Sanders [illegible phone number] [illegible email address] March 19, 1999 Clerk of the Court Supreme Court of the United States 1 First Street, N. E. Washington, D. C. 20543 re: Tommy Olmstead v. L.C. and E. W. by Zimring, No. 98-536 Dear Clerk, The State of Mississippi hereby withdraws from the Amicus Curise Brief of the States in Support of Petitioners in the above cause. We will furnish a representative to physically redact the Mississippi signature block from copies of briefs on file with the Court. Please contact me if anything further is required. With best wishes, I am Very truly yours [signed] Robert E. Sanders [typed] Robert E. Sanders Assistant Attorney General RES/vs cc: Frankie Sue Del Papa, Anne B. Cathcart, Albert Gilbert - ADAPT (1172)
Bill Lockyer Attorney General State of California Department of Justice 1300 I Street Suite 125 P.O. Box 944253 Sacramento, CA 94244-2550 Public: (916) 324 3502 Facsimile: (916) 322 0206 (916) 323 7355 February 3, 1999 Stephanie A. Daniel Assistant Attorney General Office of the Attorney General State of Florida Civil Division/State Programs Section By TELEFAX ONLY-(850) 488 4872 Re: Olmstead v. L. C. U. S. Supreme Court No. 98-536 Dear Ms. Daniel [crossed out in pen, handwritten to say Stephanie--] This is to inform you that California will not be joining in the multi-state amicus brief Florida has prepared in the above-entitled case. Please do not hesitate to call me in you have any questions. Sincerely, [signed] Thomas F. Gede [typed] Thomas F. Gede Special Assistant Attorney General For Bill Lockyer Attorney General - ADAPT (1193)
[Headline] Pivotal Rulings Ahead for Law On Disabilities [Subheading] Supreme Court to Begin to Chart Protections By LINDA GREENHOUSE WASHINGTON, April 18 — Beginning on Wednesday with a case that some lawyers have labeled the Brown v. Board of Education of the disability rights movement, the Supreme Court is embarking on an unusually extensive review of a single Federal statute, the Americans With Disabilities Act. The Justices' decision to hear four disability act cases over a two-week period reflects the fact that the full dimensions of this far-reaching civil rights law remain uncharted even after nearly 10 years on the books. The law has become broadly familiar for removing physical barriers in public places and for opening the workplace to people with disabilities. Indeed, three of the cases do involve employment disputes, presenting the surprisingly unsettled is-sue of whether a physical problem that is kept in check through medication or compensated for by some-thing as simple as corrective lenses qualifies under the law, as a disability. The case scheduled for Wednesday, the first of the four, is different. There is no easy remedy at hand for the problems facing the plaintiffs, two Georgia women whose disabilities include mental retardation, mental illness and brain damage. In su-ing the state the two women, Lois Curtis and Elaine Wilson, sought not employment but a life outside the Georgia Regional Hospital in Atlanta, a large state institution. Both women spent many months in the hospital waiting for placement in a homelike environment that their doctors said would be medically and socially appropriate but for which there were long waiting lists. The question in the case, Olmstead v. Ldi.C., No. 98-536, is whether the Americans With Disabilities Act re-quires a state to offer such a setting, for example, a small, supervised group home, for people for whom such a setting is appropriate. The Federal appeals court in Atlanta ruled last.year that it does. In the four months since the Justices agreed to hear Georgia's appeal, the case has galvanized disability rights' advocates. It pits Georgia and a group of other states against the Clinton Administration, which is defending a regulation issued in the earliest days of the law, in the Administration of President George Bush, that endorses the principle of "integration" of people with disabilities into the wider population, to the greatest extent possible, in the provision of public services. At issue is Title II of the law, which applies to public services offered by state and local governments. It pro-vides that "no qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in" or "be subjected to discrimination" by a Government program or service. A 1991 regulation, issued by the Attorney General under a Congressional directive "to issue regulations setting forth the forms of discrimination prohibited," provides that services or programs shall be offered "in the most integrated setting appropriate to the needs" of people with dis-abilities. The regulation came to be known as the "integration mandate." In its decision in the Georgia case last year, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit declared, "By definition where, as here, the state confines an individual with a disability in an institutionalized set-ting when a community placement is appropriate, the state has violated the core principle underlying the Americans With Disabilities Act's integration mandate." State budgetary restrictions were not a defense, the appeals court said, unless the cost of compliance was "so unreasonable given the demands of the state's mental health budget that it would fundamentally alter the service it provides." In ruling against the state, the 11th Circuit agreed with the one other Federal appeals court to have ad-dressed the question, in a case from Philadelphia that the Supreme Court declined to review four years ago. It is unusual for the Court to agree to hear a case on the meaning of a Federal law in the absence of conflicting opinions among the lower Federal courts. So disability rights' advocates were alarmed when the Court accepted Georgia's appeal, interpreting the action as a signal that the Justices were moved by the strong states' rights tone of Georgia's petition for review and were leaning toward overturning the appeals court's decision. Groups such as Adapt, a nation-wide organization of people with dis-abilities, lobbied and demonstrated in many of the 22 states that had formed a coalition in support of Georgia's appeal by signing a brief as friends of the Court. Four states later joined the coalition. But as a result of Adapt's lobbying efforts, more than half the states had dropped out of the coalition by the time Georgia filed its final brief, a highly unusual turn of events. Typical was a public statement by Michigan's Solicitor General, Thomas L. Casey, who said that after taking a "fresh look" at the case, his state had concluded that "Georgia's arguments are not consistent with the state of Michigan's position as a leader in community-based mental health care." Even after signing the final ver-sion of the multistate brief in support of Georgia's position, some states continued to have second thoughts, and several disavowed their position. Massachusetts Officials, for example [text breaks for a quote] [pulled quote] The Justices' decisions will help chart a wide-reaching act [text continues] said the state's signature on the brief "has been wrongly interpreted as a retreat by the Commonwealth from its long-standing support of dis-ability rights in general and deinstitutionalization in particular." The states now in Georgia's camp are Indiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Hawaii, South Carolina, Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, Washington, Tex-as and Colorado. Along with Massachusetts, Minnesota and Louisiana withdrew their support after signing the final brief. In addition to Michigan, the states that initially supported Georgia but declined to sign the final brief were Alabama, California, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah and West Virginia. At the same time, 58 former state commissions and directors of mental health from 36 states, including New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, filed a brief in their own names, supporting homelike care as more appropriate and effective and asking the Court not to accept Georgia's "alarmist claims" about the impact of the 11th Circuit's ruling. Georgia's basic argument, made in its brief to the court, is that the appeals court misapplied the integration regulation, which itself exceeds the scope of the statute. In enacting the Americans With Disabilities Act, the brief asserts, Congress did not make "a national value judgment that the 'least restrictive treatment' must be provided to psychiatric patients, to say nothing of imposing on the states the massive and indeterminate fiscal burdens that would follow such a decision." Simply "requiring a person to wait her turn for a community placement" is evidence of fiscal constraint but not of discrimination, the state says. Emphatic as the state is in making its argument, the other side speaks fervently of the case as the ultimate test of the statute's meaning and identity as a civil rights jaw, "the Brown v. Board of Education for disability rights," in the words of Stephen F. Gold, a lawyer represent-ing Adapt and other disability groups. In an interview, Mr. Gold, of the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, said people with disabilities had long faced segregation reminiscent of the segregation , based on race. "If the Americans with Disabilities Act did not mean to end unnecessary segregation, then all the work we did in promulgating it as a civil rights statute is a sham," he said. "We're just trying to get people out of institutions who don't have to be there." The two plaintiffs, having won their lawsuit have been living successfully in the community, Ms. Curtis in a three-person group home and Ms. Wilson in an apartment of her own with supportive services. Both are planning to attend the Supreme Court argument. Before the month ends, the Court will hear the three other disability act cases, which all raise the question of how to define the disabilities that bring a person within the law's protection. The plaintiff in Murphy v. United Parcel Service, No. 9674992, to be argued on April 27, is a truck driver whose high blood pressure is controlled with medication. He sued under the disability law after his employer dismissed him, and is now appealing a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, in Denver. The court, view-ing his condition in its medicated state, concluded that he was not a person with a disability and was not entitled to sue. On April 28, the Court will hear Sutton v. United Air Lines, No. 97-1943, a similar case in which twin sisters, both nearsighted but with vision correctable to 20/20, were denied jobs as pilots because they did not meet the airline's requirement for uncorrected vision. The same appeals court in Denver held that they had no basis for a lawsuit because their correctable vision was not a disability. In both cases, the question is whether a disability should have to be assessed in its "mitigated" or uncorrected state. The final case, Albertsons v. Kirkengburg, No. 98-591, also scheduled for April 28, presents the somewhat different situation of a truck driver who sees out of only one eye but whose brain has compensated for the deficiency. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, concluding that he sees adequately but in a "different manner" from most other people found him to be disabled and therefore entitled to sue the employer that dismissed him. The employer is appealing.