Second Circuit Vacates DAI Judgment on Narrow Standing Grounds

Breaking news:  The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit just issued its long-awaited decision in Disability Advocates, Inc. v. Cuomo.  (The argument, at which I represented the United States, was in December of 2010.)  This is the case in which the Eastern District of New York had held that New York violated the ADA and Olmstead by administering a system in which people with psychiatric disabilities were sent to live in "adult homes" rather than more appropriate, integrated settings.  Today's decision vacates the district court's judgment and remands for dismissal of the action for lack of standing.  The case was brought by and in the name of Disability Advocates, Inc. (DAI), which, pursuant to a contract, exercises some of the authority of New York's protection and advocacy system.  The Second Circuit today held that DAI lacked associational standing to sue on behalf of the constituents of New York's protection and advocacy system.  The court declined to weigh in on the question whether protection and advocacy systems generally have associational standing to sue on behalf of their constituents -- an issue  that has led to conflicting decisions in the circuits.  The court simply held that a contractor to a protection and advocacy system did not have that sort of standing, because the mechanisms of constituent control of the protection and advocacy system did not necessarily extend to contractors of that system.

More to come.