Supreme Court win for girl with epilepsy expected to make disability
lawsuits against schools easier
[June 13, 2025]
By LINDSAY WHITEHURST
WASHINGTON (AP) — A teenage girl with a rare form of epilepsy won a
unanimous Supreme Court ruling on Thursday that's expected to make it
easier for families of children with disabilities to sue schools over
access to education.
The girl's family says that her Minnesota school district didn’t do
enough to make sure she has the disability accommodations she needs to
learn, including failing to provide adequate instruction in the evening
when her seizures are less frequent.
But lower courts ruled against the family's claim for damages, despite
finding the school had fallen short. That’s because courts in that part
of the country required plaintiffs to show schools used “bad faith or
gross misjudgment,” a higher legal standard than most disability
discrimination claims.
The district, Osseo Area Schools, said that lowering the legal standard
could expose the country’s understaffed public schools to more lawsuits
if their efforts fall short, even if officials are working in good
faith.
The family appealed to the Supreme Court, which found that lawsuits
against schools should have the same requirements as other disability
discrimination claims.
Children with disabilities and their parents “face daunting challenges
on a daily basis. We hold today that those challenges do not include
having to satisfy a more stringent standard of proof than other
plaintiffs,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.
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The Supreme Court is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 17,
2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
 The court rebuffed the district's
argument, made late in the appeals process, that all claims over
accommodations for people with disabilities should be held to the
same higher standard — a potentially major switch that would have
been a “five-alarm fire” for the disability rights community, the
girl's lawyers said.
Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, wrote
separately to say he would be willing to consider those arguments at
some point in the future, though he didn't say whether they would
win.
But Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown
Jackson, saw it differently. Sotomayor wrote in another concurrence
that adopting those higher standards more broadly would “eviscerate
the core” of disability discrimination laws.
The girl's attorney Roman Martinez, of Latham & Watkins, called
Thursday's ruling a win for the family and “children with
disabilities facing discrimination in schools across the country."
He added that "it will help protect the reasonable accommodations
needed to ensure equal opportunity for all."
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