NOTE: This is one of three identically named cases in the Clearinghouse. For the 2005 case challenging New Jersey's overuse of Conditional Extension Pending Placement (CEPP), see PB-NJ-0003. For the 2008 case challenging the long waitlists for community-based waiver services, see PB-NJ-0004.

Disability Rights New Jersey (DRNJ), the state Protection and Advocacy agency, filed this lawsuit to challenge New Jersey's pervasive over-institutionalization of individuals with developmental disabilities. In its complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey on September 29, 2005, DRNJ alleged that the state's failure to provide community-based support services, housing, and appropriate assessment tools has lead to the unnecessary institutionalization of this population in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (under the 1999 Supreme Court precedent, Olmstead v. L.C.), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the federal Medicaid statute.

After a long period of discovery and negotiation, the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment on March 25, 2010. Because the Defendants' summary judgment motion attacked the constitutionality of the ADA and Section 504, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a motion to intervene to defend the constitutionality of a federal statute. DOJ (Civil Rights Division) also separately filed a brief supporting the Plaintiffs on the merits of their motion for summary judgment.

On September 24, 2010, Judge Anne E. Thompson denied the Plaintiffs' motion and most of the Defendants' motion. She granted summary judgment to the Defendants, however, on the Plaintiffs' Medicaid Act claims, finding that the Plaintiffs do not claim a right to access financial assistance under Medicaid, but rather, they wish to access certain medical services and thus cannot raise a claim under the statute. After this order, the Plaintiffs filed a motion for reconsideration on that issue on October 6, 2010. They argued that the financial assistance v. medical services distinction had been overturned by the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), and that the PPACA had resolved a circuit split and specifically overturned the cases from other circuits upon which Judge Thompson had relied in her decision. In light of this, the Judge granted the motion for reconsideration and reinstated the Plaintiffs' Medicaid claim on December 2, 2010.

After more discovery and negotiation, the parties ultimately agreed to a settlement in December 2012, which was entered by the court upon the case's dismissal in March 2013. The settlement agreement resolved both this case and a case challenging the long waitlists for Medicaid-funded Home and Community Based Waiver Services (see PB-NJ-0004).

Through this agreement, the State will discharge all community-eligible individuals from institutions by 2017 (about 600 people) and provide necessary services. The state will also increase screening and diversion services for those who are slated for placement in an institution. The agreement also includes funding for a consultant who will assist in implementing the agreement, and allows for Disability Rights New Jersey to serve as a monitor.

The agreement ended in 2017, and the case is now closed.

Beth Kurtz - 04/13/2013


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