I had two reactions when I heard about the recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County v. Talevski. My first reaction was that I was shocked; my second was that I wasn’t shocked at all.
While a lot of Americans were voting last November 8, the Supreme Court was hearing oral arguments in this case. In 2019, Ivanka Talevski filed a federal lawsuit against Valparaiso Care and Rehabilitation, a nursing home in Indiana where her deceased husband, Gorgi, had been a resident. According to the lawsuit, Gorgi Talevski’s dementia advanced to the point where his family checked him into the facility in 2016.
At the time, Talevski could talk, feed himself, walk, socialize, and recognize his family. But shortly thereafter, he became unable to eat on his own and began losing the ability to communicate in English. Thus, in 2019, Ivanka Talevski filed a federal lawsuit against the home, and against Health and Hospital Corporation, which operates the facility. The suit charged that the facility violated Talevski’s rights under the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act because the staff who were supposed to take care of him had used chemical restraints and medicated him to sleep rather than treat his dementia.
The defense played hardball. They tried to get the case dismissed by challenging the right of Talevski, or anybody else, to take legal action under that law. A lower court judge agreed but the appeals court reversed the decision.
The fact that the Supreme Court was hearing this case freaked out a lot of disability rights activists. If the Supreme Court sided with the defense, it could mean that only the government could take action against nursing homes that violate the rights of their residents.
The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law warned that this could mean that access to the courts could also be cut off for beneficiaries of other federally funded programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
It seemed certain that things were going to go in that direction, because you know how many boneheaded conservatives currently sit on the Supreme Court. But when the ruling came down on June 8, it was 7 to 2 in favor of the Talevski side.
That was a big shock. But what wasn’t shocking at all—and in fact was completely predictable—was that the dissenters were Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, a.k.a. the two stooges. The logic of the defense was so boneheaded that even the three judges appointed by the squatter who used to occupy the White House couldn’t buy it. But nothing is too boneheaded for those two.