Judge Todd Markle wrote in the court that state employees could still sue for disability discrimination under Georgia’s Fair Employment Practices Act and Disability Employment Equity Act, stating that Georgia law only provides for compensation for “actual damages,” whereas the ADA allows for remedies such as compensatory and punitive damages.
Edward Buckley, an Atlanta employment lawyer who represented the plaintiffs in the case decided Tuesday, said Georgia law limits compensation in workplace disability lawsuits to lost wages. Under Georgia law, state employees cannot receive compensation for emotional damages or attorney’s fees, nor can they use remedies to punish employers who don’t reasonably accommodate disabilities, Buckley said.
“Essentially, the appeals court has decided that state employees are not entitled to the same protections as non-state employees when they become disabled,” Buckley told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Judge Christopher J. McFadden of the Georgia Court of Appeals wrote a concurring opinion Tuesday expressing “uneasiness” with the decision and urging Georgia lawmakers to evaluate its consequences.
“For 22 years, our nation’s disability laws and the agencies that enforce them have evolved around the understanding that the Fair Employment Practices Act waives state immunity for federal disability claims,” McFadden wrote. “Reversing all of that would have policy consequences that we are ill-equipped to evaluate, and it is not our role to do so.”
The ruling dismissed an ADA lawsuit brought against the Augusta Judicial Circuit Public Defender’s Office by a former clerk who claimed she was demoted, reprimanded and ultimately fired for taking time off work due to breast cancer.
Buckley said Georgia has about 70,000 state employees, including county employees who work in state-funded jobs, many of whom have varying degrees of mental and physical disabilities that require accommodations under the ADA. Buckley said he will likely ask the Georgia Supreme Court to review the decision because “there aren’t a lot of protections in place right now.”
“This doesn’t just affect (plaintiffs) who were fired after telling their employers they had cancer,” Buckley said Wednesday. “Ultimately, we’re talking about tens of thousands of people who will be affected by this decision.”
In January 2022, a Richmond County judge rejected the public defender’s office’s attempt to dismiss the ADA claim, citing the 2002 Williamson decision.
The appeals court on Tuesday agreed with Attorney General Chris Carr and other lawyers at his office that Williamson was wrong. The court said states have a right to immunity from ADA lawsuits under the 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and that Georgia did not waive its immunity by enacting the Fair Employment Practices Act in 1978.
“Williamson must be overturned,” Markle wrote.
A representative for Carr did not immediately respond to questions about the sentence.
Under Georgia’s Fair Employment Practices Act, state employees can seek reinstatement and payment of back wages to resolve claims of employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability or age.
Buckley said plaintiffs’ attorneys have no incentive to pursue such claims because Georgia law does not allow state employees to seek attorney’s fees as part of the relief granted in disability discrimination lawsuits.
“This certainly violates the rights of public servants with disabilities,” he said of Tuesday’s ruling. “It’s not an easy thing to file a disability lawsuit. It’s not something the average layperson would know how to do.”