In 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act, stating that the law meant “the end to the unjustified segregation and exclusion of persons with disabilities from the mainstream of American life.”
Last Friday, Judge Middlebrooks quoted these words in the introduction to a 79-page order ruling that the state of Florida violated the ADA by effectively forcing families to keep their disabled children in state-funded nursing homes instead of at home. The Court's order focused on Florida's failure to provide sufficient access to private duty nursing, a service that would help enable home care.
The Agency for Health Care Administration, the state agency which oversees the Medicaid program, has appealed and is seeking a stay of the Court's order. Order excerpted below and Herald covers it here.
Middlebrooks Order by John Byrne on Scribd
Have you read the 73 page per curiam opinion in Demarcus Sears bv. Warden GDCP< Case No 18-13467 (07.19.23)? It's like reading about proceedings in a particularly unenlightened third world country. Hats off to Judges Jordan, Rosenbaum, and Jill Pryor. It looks like the panel is inviting the district court to decide the case and not remand it to the state court. If ever a case called for that, this one looks like it does.
ReplyDeleteWait, you’re telling me this was a thing? Like, recently? The f***?
ReplyDeleteBuddy, why are you surprised? Florida hates kids.
ReplyDeleteThe criminal kids we ship off to the panhandle to be tortured and murdered. The abused ones we toss into the unfounded poison pit of dependency, strip them from their parents and toss them in foster care to be abused again (all while using "confidentiality" to hide the horror from the public. The sick kids we jail.
K