August 22, 2024

Individual law enforcement officers often do not know how to account for and deal with disabilities when they are making stops or responding to calls. The police misconduct attorneys at the Helbraun Law Firm can help you file a lawsuit for both a violation of your civil rights and your rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act if law enforcement has acted inappropriately.

There are special obligations that police have and restrictions on their conduct when they are interacting with people with disabilities in a law enforcement setting. They cannot make wrongful arrests, and they must exercise reasonable accommodations, both during the arrest and in the post-arrest procedure. If they fail to do so, they may be legally responsible under the ADA.

Call the Helbraun Law Firm today to discuss your case if you believe that law enforcement violated your rights as someone with a physical or mental health disability. We have helped others in similar circumstances, and we can do the same for you.

Police Need to Account for Disabilities When Dealing with the Public

Police officers need extra awareness and sensitivity when they are dealing with someone who has a disability. The lack of ability to fully comprehend what law enforcement is saying and to comply with any directives can put a disabled person’s life at risk when their residence is entered. If law enforcement does not handle a search or call properly, it can result in unintended consequences that can include the death of or serious injury to a person with disabilities. Law enforcement may even be liable in a civil lawsuit if they fail to follow the provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act, although these cases can present legal challenges against an uncertain background of case law.

How the ADA May Apply to Police Calls

There may be instances in which a disabled person may suffer greater harm than others when law enforcement respond to a call or apprehend them. There are two potential ways that a police officer can violate the ADA when they are responding to a call or making an arrest of a person with disabilities:

wrongful arrest, where police wrongly arrest someone with a disability because they wrongfully perceive the effects of that disability as criminal activity,
Reasonable accommodation, where police fail to reasonably accommodate the person’s disability in the course of investigation or arrest, causing the person to suffer greater injury or indignity in that process than other arrestees

For example:

Someone with a hearing disability may not be able to understand what officers are saying to them, and they may fail to comply
Someone with a neurological impairment could be mistaken for one who is on drugs at the time
Arrestees in a wheelchair could be injured in a police van when they are not properly secured
Someone with a mental health disability may not be able to comprehend an officer’s instructions and could respond to a call in an aggressive manner due to their condition

The Purpose and Background of the ADA

The ADA was passed by Congress and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. As relevant here, the ADA prohibits discrimination in public services. Here, “public services” is defined as “any program, service, or activity provided by state and local governments, or by public entities that contract with them.”

The ADA is written using very broad language. The Report that was issued by a House Committee when they sent the legislation to the floor explains that the law is supposed to apply to virtually everything that public entities do. However, there is still some outstanding ambiguity about whether the ADA applies to police calls involving people with disabilities, whether they are physical or mental health issues.

City of San Francisco v. Sheehan

There was a 2015 case which potentially could have resolved this legal question. In City of San Francisco v. Sheehan, police officers responded to a call involving a woman who lived in a group home for people with mental health disabilities. She suffered from a schizophrenic disorder, and she had stopped taking her medication. Officers were called to perform a welfare check. When officers arrived at the home, she threatened them with a knife. The officers left the room, but they made a decision that they needed to try to reenter the room before backup arrived. They tried to subdue her with pepper spray. When that did not work, officers shot her several times. Sheehan sued the police department, claiming that they violated the ADA by subduing her in a manner that did not reasonably accommodate her disability.

The District Court ruled in favor of the police department, finding that officers did not have to determine whether their actions complied with the ADA before taking actions to protect themselves and others. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit partially reversed the district court’s holding, stating that the ADA encompasses “anything a public entity does,” but a court could consider whether officers acted reasonably in light of exigent circumstances.

When the case reached the Supreme Court on appeal, the Court eventually ruled on the Fourth Amendment issue and did not reach the issue of whether the ADA applied to Sheehan’s case. The Court held that the officers acted reasonably under the Fourth Amendment when they entered Sheehan’s room for the second time. The Court explained that it should not have even endeavored to consider any issues regarding the ADA in the first place, effectively punting on a key legal issue.

The Law Is Uncertain in the Wake of Sheehan

In the wake of Sheehan, there has still been disagreement in the lower courts about whether the ADA applies when officers make calls involving disabled people. Most circuits continue to hold that the ADA does apply to on-the-street police encounters, which would include mental health checks and arrests. However, the Fifth Circuit has adopted a categorical rule that unsecured police encounters are exempt from the ADA. The Fifth Circuit focuses only on the officer’s safety, as opposed to the needs of the disabled person.

The Ninth Circuit considers whether the ADA applies to arrests and police calls. For example, in O’Doan v. Sanford, the Ninth Circuit held that officers did not violate the ADA when they used a “reverse reap throw” to bring the suspect to the ground. Here, the officers knew that a suspect was epileptic and was in the midst of a seizure, but they did not know what a grand mal seizure was, even though that was the suspect’s described condition. After finding that the officers had qualified immunity, the Ninth Circuit also held that the district court correctly ruled against the plaintiff on ADA grounds because he had not shown that a lesser amount of force would have been reasonable under the circumstances.”

However, there have been cases in which courts have sided with plaintiffs on ADA issues involving arrests. Specifically, a number of district courts throughout the Ninth Circuit have held police departments liable for wrongful arrests of disabled people. For example, in one case, an Arizona district court held that a plaintiff could sue a police department for wrongful arrest when officers mistook the effects of that disability as criminal activity. To win an ADA case for wrongful arrests, a plaintiff would need to show that:

They were disabled;
The arresting officer knew or should have known he was disabled
The officer arrested him for legal conduct related to his disability

If an ADA case goes to court, case law seems to indicate that the court will do everything possible to avoid ruling on that specific issue if they can decide the case on other grounds, even if the ADA applies, you would likely need to present multiple other arguments that could overcome the police department’s arguments that they have qualified immunity. There is still little predictability in these types of cases, since courts seem to handle these cases in different ways.

Officers Are Not Always Trained to Handle Calls Involving Disabled Persons

In the meantime, officers need to be better trained for making these calls because many of the facts of these lawsuits involve officers who theoretically should have known better before making arrests or using large amounts of force. However, there are no uniform national standards for training.

In 2021, Congresswoman Gwen Moore proposed the Preventing Tragedies Between Police and Communities Act to require all those in police training to have awareness and recognition of mental health and substance abuse issues with an emphasis on communication strategies. The bill would have also required prospective officers to undergo training in de-escalation and use of force to improve group dynamics and diminish excessive use of force when making calls involving those with mental health issues. The bill died in that Congress without receiving a vote on the floor.

At the Helbraun Law Firm, we have represented disabled clients in lawsuits involving police officer violations of the ADA when making and responding to calls. We have represented a disabled client who had significant loss of hearing and another who was wearing a colostomy bag at the time of their encounter with law enforcement. If you believe that your rights under the ADA have been violated, it is essential that you contact an experienced civil rights and police misconduct immediately.

Contact a San Francisco Police Misconduct Attorney Today

Schedule a free consultation with the police misconduct lawyers at the Helbraun Law Firm to learn more about whether you can sue law enforcement. We take the time to listen to you before giving you pragmatic advice about your legal rights. You can contact our police misconduct lawyer’s today on our website or by calling us today at 410-982-4000.

David M. Helbraun

Attorney David M. Helbraun at the Helbruan Law Firm in San Francisco emphasize litigation and conflict resolution in the areas of legal malpractice, civil rights & police misconduct and insurance & tort litigation.