The Georgia Court of Appeals has overruled more than two decades of its own precedent by significantly limiting the ability of state employees to seek damages for workplace disability discrimination.
In a 3-0 opinion issued Tuesday, the court held that state employers are immune from civil claims for violations of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.
The ruling wipes the court’s 2002 holding that the state had waived its sovereign immunity in such cases. That prior decision, in a case titled Williamson v. Department of Human Resources, had been relied on by state employees seeking damages only available under the ADA.
Writing for the court, Judge Todd Markle said state employees can still bring disability discrimination claims under Georgia’s Fair Employment Practices Act and the Georgia Equal Employment for Persons with Disabilities Code. He acknowledged that compensatory and punitive damages are available under the ADA, among other relief, while Georgia law only provides compensation for “actual damages.”
Atlanta employment lawyer Edward Buckley, who represents the plaintiff in the case decided Tuesday, said Georgia law limits compensation in workplace disability cases to lost wages. State employees can’t get damages for emotional harm or attorney fees under Georgia law, nor relief designed to punish employers that won’t reasonably accommodate disabilities, Buckley said.
“Basically, the Court of Appeals has decided that state employees don’t have the same rights as non-state employees to be protected in the event that they’re disabled,” Buckley told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Georgia Court of Appeals Judge Christopher J. McFadden wrote a concurring opinion Tuesday signaling his “trepidation” about the decision and urging Georgia legislators to evaluate the consequences.
“For 22 years, our disability law and the institutions that administer it have developed around the understanding that the Fair Employment Practices Act waives sovereign immunity to federal disability claims,” McFadden wrote. “Upsetting all of that will have policy consequences that we are ill equipped to evaluate — and that it is not our role to evaluate.”
The ruling dismisses ADA claims brought against the Augusta Judicial Circuit Office of the Public Defender by a former administrative assistant who alleged that she was demoted, disciplined and ultimately fired for missing work due to her breast cancer.
Buckley said there are about 70,000 state employees in Georgia, including some county workers with state-funded jobs, many of whom have mental and physical disabilities of varying degrees that need to be accommodated under the ADA. Buckley said he’ll likely ask the Georgia Supreme Court to review the decision, as “there’s not a lot protecting (state employees) now.”
“This is not something that’s just affecting (the plaintiff) who was fired after she informed her employer that she had cancer,” Buckley said Wednesday. “We’re talking about tens of thousands of people ultimately over time who will be impacted by this decision.”
In January 2022, a Richmond County judge denied the public defender office’s attempt to dismiss the ADA claims, citing the 2002 Williamson decision.
The appeals court agreed Tuesday with Attorney General Chris Carr and the office’s other defense attorneys that the Williamson decision was wrong. The court said the state is entitled to immunity from ADA claims under the Eleventh Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and that Georgia did not waive its immunity by enacting the Fair Employment Practices Act in 1978.
“We must overturn Williamson,” Markle wrote.
Carr’s representative did not immediately respond to questions about the ruling.
Under Georgia’s Fair Employment Practices Act, state employees can seek job reinstatement and back pay to resolve claims of employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability or age.
Buckley said the fact that Georgia law doesn’t allow state employees to seek their attorney fees as part of the relief awarded in disability discrimination cases means plaintiff lawyers have no incentive to help pursue those claims.
“It is absolutely going to prejudice the rights of disabled state employees,” he said of Tuesday’s ruling. “It’s not easy to bring a disability case. It’s not something that the typical layperson knows how to do.”
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