Supreme Court The U.S. Supreme Court has let stand a federal judge's 1996 decision that the state discriminated against more than 300 disabled Hawaii residents by denying them medical insurance coverage.
turns down state
insurance appeal
By Debra Barayuga
dbarayuga@starbulletin.comThe state had appealed the 1996 decision by U.S. District Judge Alan Kay to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and lost.
The Supreme Court denied yesterday the state's petition to review the federal appellate court's ruling.
"By the Supreme Court's denial of the right to review, they are in fact saying, 'We don't want to address it,' and the 9th Circuit decision stands," said attorney Cori Lau, who along with Shelby Floyd represented the plaintiffs in the class-action suit.
"It's a vindication and really shows that the courts agreed the state did discriminate against the disabled," Lau said.
"I think (the plaintiffs) are grateful for that fact, but the fact remains they haven't been compensated."
Kay had ruled the plaintiffs were entitled to recover damages for violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 for unlawfully denying them benefits between August 1994 and March 1996.
Meanwhile, individual cases of class members went to trial while others settled with the understanding that the state could appeal the decision on the state's liability, Lau said.
At least 22 cases that went to trial and were appealed were put on hold until a determination was made in the appealed liability case decided by the 9th Circuit Court. An additional 100 have already settled, but the state has not evaluated that amount.
Although no one would give a figure on how much it would cost the state, the action means the state will have to pay judgments in the 22 cases and set figures to pay in the settled cases.
The remaining cases of about 200 would have to go to trial or be settled.
The plaintiffs were seeking medical insurance coverage through Quest, a pilot program by the state that provided medical and dental benefits to a gap group of people who could not afford medical coverage.
The state had disparate guidelines for income and assets for the disabled -- rules that basically discriminated against them, Lau said.
"The state actually expanded benefits to people not otherwise eligible and gave nondisabled people free medical benefits that they denied to the disabled," Floyd said.
The high court's action means "the wait is over, for the most part, and that's been a real problem because lots of them have died," Floyd said.
More than 25 of the plaintiffs have died waiting for a resolution.
In a written statement, the Attorney General's Office said: "The State of Hawaii is disappointed that the Supreme Court has decided not to hear our challenge to the constitutionality of federal court suits for damages against a state under the Rehabilitation Act.
"The Supreme Court is reviewing, in a case from California, the constitutionality of federal court suits for damages against a state under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act."
Dorothy Sellers, deputy attorney general who heads the Appellate Division, said Quest allegedly altered the benefits people were getting, prompting the lawsuit.
Deputy Attorney General Marie Laderta, head of the Tort and Litigation Division, said the roughly 200 remaining plaintiffs still need to prove their claims for compensatory and general damages in each of their cases. Last year, a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court shot down the plaintiffs' ability to recover punitive damages.
The amount of damages each person could recover varies because each had individual situations, Lau said. For example, one person unable to obtain medical coverage through Quest went without medical care for a condition that worsened or had to pay out-of-pocket expenses.
Although the state fixed the Quest regulations so they would not be discriminatory, the problem was not fixed properly, so a second class-action case was certified for the period of March 1996 to December 1997, Lau said.
Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
State of Hawaii
