Denial of medication while in police custody does not violate Americans with Disabilities Act

This case arising from the Occupy Wall Street protests a decade ago sets forth a new interpretation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The plaintiff was arrested in March 2012 during an Occupy anniversary commemoration, and while in police custody, she was denied medicine for her epilepsy for hours on end before they finally administered it to her at 4:30 in the morning, about 12 hours after she first entered police custody. She normally takes her medication at 10:00 pm. Does she have a case under the ADA? The Court of Appeals says she does not.

The case is Tardif v. City of New York, issued on March 18. The district court granted the City summary judgment on this claim, and the Second Circuit (Bianco, Livingston and Parker) affirms. Under the ADA, no disabled person may be denied the benefits of any services from a public entity "due to her disability." Plaintiff claims she was denied a reasonable accommodation in violation of the ADA. While that theory can work for many plaintiffs depending on the circumstances, it does not work for plaintiff. As the Court of Appeals frames the issue:

Whether the alleged failure by the police to provide custodial medical services to Tardif in a timely and adequate manner prior to her arraignment, by itself, constitutes a failure to make a reasonable accommodation "by reason of" an individual's disability under the ADA.

Prior case law, Henrietta D. v. Bloomberg,  331 F.3d 261 (2d Cir. 2003), holds that plaintiffs must prove their "disabilities were a substantial cause of their inability to obtain services," rather than "so remotely or insignificantly related to their disabilities as not to be 'by reason' of them." Ultimately, the Court held in Henrietta D., "the demonstration that a disability makes it difficult for a plaintiff to access benefits that are available to both those with and without disabilities is sufficient to sustain a claim for a reasonable accommodation." This is a fine distinction. 

Plaintiff loses under that distinction because there is no evidence that plaintiff's disability made it difficult for her to access benefits, i.e., medical services, that were available to all pretrial detainees. Her epilepsy did not cause a deprivation of medical services. "At its core, the issue here is not whether Tardif as denied medical services because of her disability. Instead, her claim relates solely to whether she received adequate medical treatment in police custody for her disability, and such a claim is not cognizable under the ADA." Any contrary holding would allow inmates to sue in federal court virtually any medical malpractice clam arising from a custodial setting. In other words, the Court of Appeals sees this as a medical malpractice case, not an ADA case. 

The Court of Appeals issued a similar holding in Doe v. Pfrommer, 148 F.3d 73 (2d Cir. 1998), stating that where someone challenges "the substance of the services provided" rather than "illegal discrimination," there is no ADA violation.

What relief would plaintiff have in this situation? In a footnote, the Court of Appeals notes that pretrial detainees like Tardif could sue for the denial of medical treatment under the due process clause for deliberate indifference. The Court of Appeals cites Weyant v. Okst, 101 F.3d 845 (2d Cir. 1996), a case I argued 25 years ago, for that proposition. The opinion in Tardif's case does not indicate whether she pursued such a claim.