Overview

• Supreme Court threw out the 8th Circuit’s “bad faith or gross misjudgment” requirement for disability suits in schools.
• The justices ruled unanimously that lower courts applied an overly stringent standard inconsistent with the ADA’s deliberate indifference framework.
• Their ruling revives Ava Tharpe’s suit against Minnesota’s Osseo Area Schools after years of denied requests for afternoon and evening instruction to accommodate her seizures.
• Osseo Area Schools warned that a lowered legal bar could expose understaffed public districts to more lawsuits, but the high court declined to adopt the district’s broader proposal.
• Chief Justice John Roberts emphasized that the court would not consider arguments raised too late while Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh noted the issue’s importance for future cases.