OLRS files appellate brief to preserve community placement of residents at Fairfield Center
On March 4, 2009, Ohio Legal Rights Service, on behalf of several residents of Fairfield Center (now known as "Takota Trails"), an intermediate care facility for people with mental retardation located in Butler County, Ohio, filed an appellate brief in the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the district court's dismissal of their claims against the Butler County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities and Empowering People, Inc (EPI).
The lawsuit filed in the district court had alleged that the Butler County Board, the owner of the facility and the county agency with the responsibility to provide home and community-based services to residents of Butler County with intellectual disabilities, and EPI, the operator and licensee of the facility, had independent obligations under federal law to provide community placements to those residents who wished to move from this institutional setting and who could be appropriately placed in the community.
In its brief, OLRS argued that these claims under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 were not required to be included in the case of Martin v. Strickland, a case which was previously filed against the governor of Ohio and the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and the Ohio Department of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities and which sought additional state funding for community placements for persons with disabilities living in institutional settings throughout Ohio. Furthermore, OLRS argued that these state agencies were not necessary parties in the lawsuit and that a viable claim of discrimination had been asserted against EPI.
Read the appellant brief: D.M., et al. v. Butler County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities
Article posted March 5, 2009
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