Impact Fund Amicus Brief Challenges "One-Size-Fits-All" Approach to Disparate Impact Discrimination
Meredith Dixon, Law Fellow, Impact Fund
The Impact Fund and amici recently filed an amicus brief urging the California Court of Appeals to correct the trial court decision in Perea v. California Department of Health Care Services that improperly narrowed the possible ways a civil rights plaintiff can show disparate impact discrimination under a key state law prohibiting discrimination in state-funded programs, CA Government Code section 11135.
Plaintiff Analilia Jiminez Perea and others challenge the California Department of Health Care Services’ steady decline in reimbursement rates to doctors for standard physician services through the state Medi-Cal program. The low reimbursement rates have driven doctors away from the program, denying low-income Californians meaningful access to necessary healthcare. Because the reimbursement rates set by the State have declined while Latine enrollment increased and are currently lower than other health care offerings serving whiter populations, Perea alleges that the reimbursement rates have a discriminatory disparate impact on Latine patients and violate section 11135.
Our brief argues that the superior court adopted a dangerously narrow view of disparate impact.
The superior court concluded that none of the groups with lower Latine participation and higher reimbursement rates could be used to show discrimination. The court stated that it would accept only one type of evidence. The plaintiffs must identify a better-off comparator group within the exact same population of people affected by the exact same subset of the same program at the exact same point in time. In other words, the court would only find wrongdoing if the state treated white people receiving physician services better than Latine people receiving physician services during the same period of time.
In our brief, the Impact Fund argues that the superior court adopted a dangerously narrow view of disparate impact. The key to a disparate impact claim is the discriminatory impact resulting from a seemingly neutral policy, which can show up in a variety of ways. The Perea court’s ruling closes the courthouse doors for many—if not most—forms of disparate impact discrimination and makes it much harder to enforce antidiscrimination laws. Under section 11135 alone, Californians have challenged discriminatory prison conditions, school discipline policies, provision of public services, and more. Courts must have the freedom to analyze discrimination however and wherever it occurs, if we are to achieve fair and equitable treatment of all Californians.
Impact Fund is grateful to be joined by fellow amici Asian Americans Advancing Justice—Asian Law Caucus; California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc.; Centro Legal de la Raza; Disability Rights Advocates; Disability Rights California; Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund; Equal Justice Society; Law Foundation of Silicon Valley; Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area; Legal Aid at Work; Public Counsel; Public Interest Law Project; and Western Center on Law and Poverty.