In 2013, the United States Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the state of Florida on behalf of hundreds of children living in that state who were “medically fragile” or “medically complex.” In other words, these were people under the age of twenty-one who had disabilities that meant they needed medical services on a daily basis.
Office of Counsel to the President, 1990/Public domain
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, July 26, 1990.
The lawsuit charged that the state was violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by giving these children little choice other than to be institutionalized in one of the three nursing homes for children operating in Florida if they needed Medicaid funds to pay for the daily assistance they required.
It took ten years for the case to come to trial, largely because the attorneys representing Florida played a stall game by employing a bunch of legal maneuvers designed to get the case dismissed or to impede its progress.
But, finally, on July 14, U.S District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks issued an eloquent ruling that declared that that state policy had indeed violated the rights of these children by compelling them to be segregated away from their families and communities in order to receive indispensable medical help.
Middlebrooks presided over a two-week bench trial in May. In his seventy-nine-page ruling, he wrote, “During the trial, parent after parent spoke of their desperation in trying to unite their family and bring their child with medical complexity home.” The judge concluded that state policies encouraged indefinite institutionalization and “presented a maze almost impossible for parents to escape.”
The judge concluded that state policies encouraged indefinite institutionalization and “presented a maze almost impossible for parents to escape.”
“Those who are institutionalized are spending months, and sometimes years, of their youth isolated from family and the outside world. They don’t need to be there,” Middlebrooks added. “If provided adequate services, most of these children could thrive in their own homes, nurtured by their own families.”
Middlebrooks ruled that Florida was “violating the rights of children with medical complexity who rely on the provision of vital Medicaid services and are trying, in vain, to avoid growing up in nursing homes.” He ordered Florida to, among other things, “inform and facilitate the transition of children from nursing facilities.”
This decision comes just in time to serve as a shining commemoration of the thirty-third anniversary of the signing of the ADA on July 26, 1990. Middlebrooks captured the essence of the ADA when, in his ruling, he highlighted how, “Unjustified institutionalization of individuals with disabilities is unacceptable.”
The Florida case vividly illustrates the brutal discrimination which disabled folks of all ages have been subjected to for decades by state policies that banish or ignore them.
The Florida case vividly illustrates the brutal discrimination which disabled folks of all ages have been subjected to for decades by state policies that banish or ignore them when they need support services, especially if they need public funds like Medicaid to pay for those services. If the ADA couldn’t be used to eliminate that sort of mistreatment, then it wouldn’t be much good.
But it seems like the executive branch of the government of Florida, headed by Republican presidential contender Governor Ron DeSantis, plans to commemorate the birthday of ADA by continuing this crusade to rip the guts out of the Act. A spokesperson for the agency that administers the state’s Medicaid program said Florida “intends to immediately seek a stay and appeal.”
They don’t even care if children get hurt. This is the depth of their contempt for the law.