Going to the Yolo Adult Day Health Center in Woodland was the highlight of 74-year-old Esther Darling’s day. She had been going there five days a week for more than a decade and the program was the one thing that kept her from ending up in a nursing home. Little did she know she would be at the center of a legal battle to save her program (Darling v Douglas).

Esther Darling received a client recognition award from Disability Rights California for her advocacy to save Adult Day Health Care. She talked about what the services meant to her.

In 2009 when, faced with budget shortfalls, the legislature searched for savings by cutting some essential community services such as Adult Day Health Care (ADHC). The 35,000 people who attended ADHC centers were at risk of losing access to essential health services and being placed in nursing facilities. The 300 ADHC programs in the state provided much more than the sum total of their services.

In 2009, a federal court in Oakland twice granted plaintiffs injunctions to stop drastic reductions of ADHC. In response, in 2011, the state passed legislation that would completely eliminate ADHC. Hundreds of clients, including the feisty Esther, participated in rallies in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Just weeks before the December shutdown of services, DRC and co-counsel settled the case and preserved ADHC—to be renamed Community Based Adult Services (CBAS), ensuring that tens of thousands of Californians with disabilities could continue to live in their own homes and stay out of institutions. Elissa Gershon, who negotiated the settlement with co-counsel, was gratified over the outcome. DRC co-counseled the Darling v. Douglas lawsuit with Justice in Aging, the National Health Law Program, AARP Foundation Litigation, and Morrison & Foerster LLP.