Summary
The Third Circuit affirmed summary judgment against Katrina Parker’s claims under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination, and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Parker, who is hearing-impaired, challenged the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission’s revocation of her passenger and school-bus commercial driver’s license endorsements without a pre-revocation hearing. The court held that she could not establish that she was qualified for the endorsements because she could not satisfy the applicable federal hearing requirement.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether Parker was a qualified individual with a disability entitled to pursue a Title II ADA claim based on New Jersey's hearing requirement for P and S commercial-driver endorsements.
- Whether Parker was an otherwise qualified individual under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act despite being unable to satisfy the applicable hearing requirement.
- Whether Parker was qualified under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination.
- Whether revocation of Parker's P and S endorsements without a pre-revocation hearing violated procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Holdings
- Parker could not establish that she was a qualified individual with a disability because she could not satisfy the minimum federal hearing standard incorporated into New Jersey's eligibility requirements for P and S endorsements. Her Title II claim therefore failed.
- Parker was not an otherwise qualified individual under Section 504 because she could not satisfy the hearing requirement for the P and S endorsements.
- Parker could not establish that she was qualified for purposes of the LAD because she was not qualified under the analogous Title II and Section 504 standards.
- Even assuming Parker had a property interest in the P and S endorsements, procedural due process did not require a pre-revocation hearing under the Mathews v. Eldridge balancing test.
Key quotations
“Parker has not made the showing that she is a qualified individual with a disability, so her claim fails without further consideration of its merits or lack thereof.” (at 14)
“An otherwise qualified person is one who is able to meet all of a program’s requirements in spite of his handicap.” (at 16-17)
“So, just as the Supreme Court in Dixon and again in Mackey rejected procedural due process challenges to the lack of a pre-deprivation hearing associated with the revocation of a driver’s license under the Mathews balancing test, Parker’s procedural due process claim related to the lack of a pre-revocation hearing with respect to her P and S endorsements also fails.” (at 24)
Factual background
Katrina Parker has a lifelong hearing impairment and could not satisfy the federal minimum hearing standard for commercial drivers. After receiving a two-year federal variance that permitted her to operate certain commercial motor vehicles, she obtained a New Jersey commercial driver's license and later received P and S endorsements authorizing passenger and school-bus driving. She drove a Rutgers University shuttle bus for approximately eight months before the NJMVC determined that her federal variance did not authorize passenger or school-bus operation and revoked the endorsements without a pre-revocation hearing. Parker lost her shuttle-bus employment and sued under federal and state disability-discrimination statutes and § 1983.
Procedural history
Parker sued in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey after the NJMVC revoked the passenger and school-bus endorsements on her commercial driver's license without a pre-revocation hearing. The District Court dismissed or narrowed certain claims at the pleading stage and later entered summary judgment against all remaining claims. The Third Circuit exercised appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirmed.