The plaintiffs were disabled Tennesseans who could not access the upper floors in state courthouses. They sued in Federal Court, arguing that since Tennessee was disallowing them public services for the reason that their disabilities, it was infringing Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Tennessee argued that the Eleventh Amendment banned the suit, and filed a motion to dismiss the case. It relied chiefly on Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett (2001), in which the Supreme Court held that Congress had, in endorsing certain provisions of the ADA, unconstitutionally repealed the supreme immunity of the States by letting people sue the States for discrimination on the foundation of disability. Garrett had held that Congress had not met the congruent-and-proportional test, in that it had not collected enough proof of discrimination on the basis of disability to give good reason for the repeal of sovereign immunity.
In Lane, the Supreme Court split 5-4. In an opinion written by Justice John Paul Stevens, the majority ruled that Congress...
Additionally, the remedy Congress put into place was fitting and relative, for the reason that the reasonable accommodations mandated by the ADA were not excessively troublesome and uneven to the harm. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, along with Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia filed dissents arguing that requiring access for disabled persons to all public buildings could not at all be measured as a way of putting in force the Fourteenth Amendment.
References
GONZALES V. OREGON (04-623) 546 U.S. 243 (2006) 368 F.3d 1118. Retrieved March 26,
2011, from Web site: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/04-623.ZS.html
TENNESSEE V. LANE (02-1667) 541 U.S. 509 (2004) 315 F.3d 680. Retrieved March 26,
2011, from Web site: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-1667.ZS.html
