V.L., et al. v. John A. Wagner, Director of the California Department of Social Services Services, et al.
The briefs supporting our case were filed by:
- The U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, which agreed with the district court that IHSS recipients could show that the cuts violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1999 Olmstead decision even if the risk of institutionalization is not “imminent.” A cut in services violates the ADA if it “causes an individual to decline in health over time and eventually enter an institution to seek necessary care;”
- The AARP Litigation Foundation, stating that seniors prefer to “age at home” using IHSS, where they have better health and outcomes, that this reduces Medicaid spending on long-term care, and that IHSS recipients have a right to bring these claims in federal court;
- A group of California counties that oppose the IHSS cuts although they administer the IHSS program and pay a portion of the costs, because any projected savings are “illusory.” The resulting increases in “hospitalization, institutionalization and homelessness” growing public health problems and loss of tax revenues “would harm counties already stretched to their limits in the current budget crisis.” The counties also said that Functional Index scores and ranks are “unreasonable and inaccurate measures of an individual’s degree of need for IHSS,” and that using them to cut IHSS “makes little sense.”
- Six state and national disability rights groups, discussing the legal and historical significance of community integration, independence and personal autonomy under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and the Olmstead decision. This amicus brief also explained that IHSS recipients have no alternatives if their services are cut, and documented cost comparisons between IHSS at an average of $24 per day versus nursing homes at $160 to $400 per day, psychiatric health facilities or pediatric facilities at $600 per day, or emergency hospitalization at up to $1200 per day. This brief was filed on behalf of CALIF: DREDF, California NAMI, CFILC, the ARC and the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.