RIIL Webcast No. 13 August 12, 2002 Presenter: Brian East RACHEL: good afternoon everybody. And welcome to the webcast on the Power and Scope of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and how to use it to advocates for your rights. Today's webcast is the third and the final in a three-part series which has been designed to really help you understand the legal avenues that are open to people with disabilities who wish to pursue claims of disability discrimination by states. And the first two webcasts in this series are both archived. So you can find those on our website and the first one discussed using the ADA and how you might still use the ADA even after recent supreme court decisions and the second one focused on state law protections. My name is Rachel Kosoy, I'm here at the Disability Law Resource Project. We are based at ILRU and we are your host for today's program. The Disability Law Resource Project or DLRP is the new name for an organization that many of you might have known us for years as the Southwest DBTAC. So that's who we are. The same folks, new name. Before we get started, I'd like to recognize the sponsors of this program and just give you a quick couple of technical details. Firstly, today's activity is a result of and it's funded by the commitment of NIDRR, the National Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research, to make research and information readily accessible to everybody on who really has a stake in getting that information. NIDRR funds the Disability Law Resource Project, your host for today's program. Okay, technical details really quickly, first, if anybody encounters any problems during the webcast, you can call in for technical assistance and we've got folks who are standing by to help you out. And our phone number is (713)-520-0232. And secondly, I want to make sure to reiterate that Brian East is going to be taking questions during the webcast. So we welcome your questions in order to submit a question, you can look -- there should be a link at the bottom of your RealPlayer or real one screen that you can click onto submit a question. If for some reason you don't find that, you can send it to webcast@ilru.org. Now I'd like to introduce our speaker for today. We are very lucky to have Brian East with us. He is a 1977 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law. He began his law career actually in private practice in Austin, Texas in 1982. And he really focused in employment and civil rights law, but now we're very lucky to have him working for Advocacy, Inc., which is Texas' protection and advocacy center. He is actually a senior attorney in the Advocacy, Inc. legal services unit and he provides assistance to advocates as well as representation to people in a variety of different areas. And Brian is really a frequent presenter on ADA and related issues and I can tell you because I've heard him speak on webcasts and in person a number of times, that he's very skilled at presenting on these issues and makes some very difficult legal concepts very easy to understand. So I'm sure you will find him interesting and informative. Brian, we're very excited to have you here today and I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to you. BRIAN: thank you, Rachel and hello to every one. Probably most of the presentations on the rights of people with disabilities focus on the ADA, and there is a good reason for that. It's been described as the world's first comprehensive civil rights law for people with disabilities. And as you probably know, most of the enforcement is left up to lawsuits filed by private individuals. As one court has explained the plaintiffs to bring these ADA lawsuits do so in the role of private attorney's general who seek to vindicate a policy of the highest priority and successful ADA point of confer a tremendous benefit upon our society at large. But for all the promise of the ADA and despite all the importance it places in these private enforcement actions, many courts, including the united states supreme court, have interpreted the ADA narrowly in some important cases, and that has limited the ADA's impact. In the Garrett case, for example, the supreme court said that a state employee with a disability who was discriminated against at work cannot sue the state for money damages under the employment provisions of Title I of the ADA. As Rachel said, this is the third in a series of three webcasts designed to follow up on that Garrett decision and other court decisions that have limited the scope of the ADA. On July 10th, Vinh Nguyen and Aaron Mccullough did a webcast explaining what Garrett actually said and did not say. And then last week, Aaron and Vinh suggested that one pass way around the Garrett decision and away around narrow interpretations of the ADA generally by the federal courts was to look to state law. And one of the points they made was that while state laws vary widely, some offer even greater protection than the ADA does. This is the third part of that series, and what I hope to do today is shed some light on another avenue for ensuring civil rights protection for people with disabilities in addition to the rights that may exist under the ADA or state law, and this other avenue of protection is section 504 of the rehabilitation act of 1973. The ADA no doubt deserves its billing as the first comprehensive civil rights law for people with disabilities, but many of the concepts in the ADA came from interpretations of an earlier federal law, 504, and section 504 remains an important civil rights statute today. In some cases, filling in gaps left by the ADA. So is section 504 stronger than the ADA or weaker or better or not as good? Well, there is no simple answer to that. In some ways 504 is more limited than the ADA, but in a few ways it may be superior as a remedy. First, let's talk about what it is. It's called section 504 because the provision originally appeared in section 504 of the rehabilitation act of 1973, but that provision is now in the united states code at 29 USC section 794a. The wording of the law is quite short. Here is what it says: no otherwise qualified individual with a disability shall solely by reason of her or his disability be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance, or under any program or activity conducted by any executive agency or the united states postal service. That's it. That's the whole of the substantive provisions of 504. But the details of what it means are found in the enforcement regulations. And there are a lot of them and I'm going to talk about them briefly because they're an important part of 504. First, some folks may be too young to recall it, but the history of these regulations is really a key moment in American history in the struggle by people with disabilities for civil rights, and many of the listeners may know that history far better than I do. I'll give you a very brief synopsis. The rehabilitation act was passed in 1973, but after passage, nothing happened, nothing happened to enforce it or to even explain it. A year later, congress had some hearings and indicated its intent that federal agencies would issue implementing regulations under 504 quickly, but nothing happened. Advocacy groups started mobilizing in 1975 an administrative complaint was filed with the old department of health, education and welfare to get them to issue 504 regulations, but still nothing happened. In '76 a lawsuit was filed against the agency and by the time the case was heard, hew had issued proposed regulations, but they were not finalized and for another year, nothing happened to finalize them. In April of 1977, political protest took place on this issue around the country. A major protest in New York, in Washington, D.C. there were demonstrators at hew, and some San Francisco, protesters occupied the offices and they refused to leave the San Francisco offices until the regulations were signed. After three weeks, the agency gave in and the regulations were finally implemented. So this powerful example of the effectiveness of the past struggles on this issue and I think it shows an important point, and that is that while that particular struggle included litigation as a component part, a lot of people think that people with disabilities wouldn't have prevailed when they did and in the way they did without political action of a lot of people. Okay, well, that's the history lesson. I do mention some website links to that history in section 2 of the paper that accompanies this presentation and the NPR website has some interesting documents on the 504 protest. Well, first, hew issued own first regulations in and six months later it issued coordinating regulations that served as a model for other federal agencies and it's important to realize that there are now lots of 504 regulations out there. Each federal agency is supposed to have a set that applies to itself and in addition, each agency that provides financial assistance to state, local governments and private entities is supposed to have a set of regulations covering those recipients. In addition to all those 504 regulations, there are the coordinating regulations, that first set by hew still exists, it's now the health and human services coordinating regulations, and they have continued vitality and in fact recited a few months ago favorably by the supreme court in the Toyota Motors case. There is also a newer set of coordinating regulations issued by the Department of Justice. It's also worth noting that in Toyota Motors, at least in the employment context, the supreme court seemed more willing to give deference to and follow the 504 regulations than it was willing to follow the ADA Title I regulations, at least in certain circumstances. So I have a couple of recommendations that flow from what I've just said. The first is even if you only have an ADA claim, if there is an issue in your case particularly about whether you are a covered person with a disability under the ADA, look at the 504 regulations to see what they say because the courts follow them. And my second recommendation is that if you think you are being discriminated against and you're trying to figure out what 504 requires, don't just look to the text of 504, but you probably need to look at least three sets of regulations, the two sets of coordinating regulations, and the regulations issued by the federal agency that is discriminating against you or that is providing funding to the agency that is discriminating against you. So these three regulations are important. They'll often be similar, but they're not identical. Let me say one last thing about the regulations, because there are so many of them I did not try in the paper to make a comprehensive survey of them and instead unless I otherwise note it in the paper, the citations to the regulations are to one or both of the sets of coordinating regulations by H. H. S. and DOJ. Okay, I've made some remarks that generally track section 1 and section 2 of the paper dealing with 504 itself and the regulations. And now I want to talk about who is covered by 504. In a couple of minutes I'm going to stop and see if there are any questions so far. So you might think about anything that's occurred to you, but let me skip to section 4 of the paper and that is describing who is protected by section 504. I'm skipping ahead over section 3 because it's a little bit longer and I want to get this short piece out of the way. 504 protects qualified people with disabilities and disability under 504 is defined in exactly the same way as it is under the ADA. Now, you may have heard other definitions in the rehabilitation act about disability, and there are other definitions, but they apply in the context of getting vocational rehabilitation services from the VR agencies like Texas Rehabilitation Commission. That's another part of the rehabilitation act, but that's not section 504. For 504, the definition of disability, like I said, is the same as that in the ADA, so this is probably not an area in which 504 is better or worse than the ADA. And it also means that the narrow court interpretations of the ADA's definition of disability will probably apply to 504. There could be some exceptions, but as far as I know, the courts so far have interpreted disability under 504 in a way that's consistent with that definition under the ADA. For those interested, we did a webcast here a few weeks ago on that definition, and there is a link to that webcast on the ILRU website. And I think I also cited that link in section 4a of the paper. Okay, I said that 504 protects qualified individuals with a disability, and we've talked about what disability means. What does qualified mean? Again, basically, it's the same standard as the ADA. In employment cases, it means someone who is able to do the essential functions of a job with or without accommodation. In nonemployment cases, it generally means people with disabilities who meet the essential eligibility requirements of the program. So, again, this notion of qualified individual with a disability, the group that's protected by 504 is not really different from the standards in the ADA. So 504 is not away around the restrictive definitions of who is protected. Now, I want to move into an area in which there is a difference between the ADA and 504, and that's with regard to the question of who has to comply with 504, who it's intended to control. Before I go on -- and this is section 3 of the paper. Before I do that, let me ask if there are any questions about what we've covered so far and that's just generally 504 and the regulation and the 504 definition of qualified individual with a disability. RACHEL: okay, we have two questions -- we've got a number of questions, but two of them relate to what you've covered so far. Let me throw those out. The first one is when and why did the DOJ issue new coordinating regulations? BRIAN: that's a good question. There was -- part of the history I didn't mention was that there was an executive order by President Carter which was intended to increase the enforcement of 504 and one of the things it did was transfer the coordinating authority from Health and Human Services to DOJ. So at that point, DOJ issued its own set and like I indicated before, they are very similar to the earlier ones, but they're not identical. So that's why there are two sets of coordinating regulations, and I think they're both important. RACHEL: okay, great. Okay, the second question just asks for some clarity on -- you were talking about how the ADA and the 504 have the same definitions of who is covered, who counts as having someone as a disability, and then, therefore, you were saying that the recent supreme court decisions, which limit the ADA definition, would also limit the 504 definitions. BRIAN: right, exactly. RACHEL: so that's likely in future cases? BRIAN: yeah, that is, and let me -- let me -- I mean, there is no -- I don't know of any case that has made a distinction between those definitions. It seems to me possible that there could be one because part of the Sutton case, for example, that's the case dealing with mitigating measures, was based on the findings in the ADA and critically, according to the supreme court, on the number of people with disabilities that the ADA was referring to. And none of that material is in 504. Whether that's going to make any difference or not, I don't know. So that's why I say there could be differences, but as far as I know so far, the courts have not found any differences. RACHEL: okay, great. I'm going to hold the rest of the questions and let you go on to the next section. BRIAN: all right. Again, I'm talking now about what's in section 3 of the paper. We know who is protected. Who does 504 apply to, that is who does it control, who can be sued under 504. And the short answer is that 504 applies to two groups, first, agencies of the federal government, and second, any program or activity that receives or gives out federal financial assistance. Okay, and here is away in which 504 is different than the ADA and in some ways broader and in some ways not as broad. Let's look at those two groups to see that. First of all, federal agencies, here there is an obvious difference because the federal government is not covered by the ADA at all. So if you have a discrimination problem with the federal government, you should be looking at a rehabilitation act claim, a 504 claim, not the ADA. Remember also that while the rehabilitation act -- while 504 applies to most of the federal government, it doesn't apply to the entire federal government. It's written to cover the federal agencies of the executive branch and the post office. So that means it does not cover the courts and it does not cover congress. As the paper points out at section 3a, there may be other ways to seek relief for discrimination in those branches of government, but 504 doesn't reach the judicial or legislative branch. Okay, so the first group 504 covers is federal agencies, federal executive agencies. And by the way, those are the agencies that most of us think of or most of us interact with when we're talking about the federal government, the agencies that are represented in the cabinet, department of treasury, department of defense, the medicaid agencies, lots of them. The second group that 504 applies to are those programs or activities that receive or give out federal financial assistance. Okay, is this different from the ADA? Well, it is kind of similar to Title II of the ADA, but it is different. It's not the same. Again, in some ways it's broader and in ways not as broad. I don't have time to go into detail in this aspect of 504 coverage, and I tried to cover some of the highlights in section 3 of the paper, but I do want to mention a few points. First of all, what is federal financial assistance? That doesn't mean a government contractor. So for example, Boeing is not covered by 504 just because it has a contract to build jets for the air force. Those kinds of federal contractors that sell products or services to the government, they're covered by the rehabilitation act, but not by section 504 and the remedies are quite different when dealing with them. So federal financial assistance does not mean procurement contractors. Instead, it means federal aid or assistance, social programs, money intended to help people. It means money for public or low income housing, money for welfare programs, money for public education, grants to assist in law enforcement, things like that. All right, so we have a sense now of what federal financial assistance is. What does it mean to receive that assistance? Because 504 applies to those who receive the assistance. And the answer is pretty broad, it covers those who receive the money directly or indirectly, but not the ultimate individual citizen beneficiary. And how do we know that it reaches both direct and indirect recipients? Well, the Supreme Court told us that it did in a case decided under a parallel law called grove city and that's cited in the paper at section 3c. But what does it mean that it covers people who receive the money directly or indirectly? Let me give you an example. Let's say the federal government gives several billion dollars to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission for the federal share of the medicaid program. And let's say part of that money goes do hospitals or nursing homes or doctors to reimburse them for health services that they provided to poor Texans. Is the Health and Human Service Commission -- the Texas Health and Human Service Commission, that state agency, required to abide by 504? Yes, because they receive federal financial assistance, that is medicaid money, directly from the federal government. What about the hospital or nursing home that the state agency pays some of that money to reimburse for health services? They're covered, too, because they get the money indirectly after it passes through the state agency. What about the individual doctor who is reimbursed by medicaid? The same thing, he or she is covered by 504 because he or she receives medicaid money indirectly from the federal government, again, after it passes through the state health and human services commission. But of course the ultimate beneficiary, that is that sick person who received the medical care, they're not covered by 504. All right, because 504 applies to those who receive federal financial assistance directly or indirectly, it covers, for example, many, many health care providers, those who accept medicaid or medicare, and many, many colleges, which frequently accept federal pell grants to help pay a portion of a student's tuition. Okay, so we know what federal financial assistance means, more or less, and we know that a recipient of such -- what a recipient of such assistance means, more or less, that is someone who receives the money directly or indirectly. So what does a program or activity because it's the program or activity that receives the assistance that's covered. In particular, do you have to show that the specific program you're complaining of is the one that receives the federal financial assistance? The short answer is no. There is another history lesson here which I'm going to skip, but I will just mention that in '84 the supreme court decided that congress intended you did have to show the particular program received federal financial assistance and congress passed the civil rights restoration act a couple of years later telling the Supreme Court it was wrong, that's not what they intended and amending 504 to make it clear that there is no longer this program specificity requirement. Let me give you another example to explain what I'm talking about. Let's say that Grove City College indirectly received federal financial assistance because it accepted pell grant money to pay for a student's tuition. And let's say that college discriminated against various students with disabilities by failing to remove architectural barriers at the student center. So lets say those students sue, and the college say you can't sue us under 504 for two reasons: first, we didn't receive the pell grant money directly from the federal government, and instead that money went to a student who then used it to pay for their education. All right, that argument we know fails because as we have already talked about, 504 covers both the direct and indirect recipients, but the second thing the college argues is even if the indirect recipient is enough, the only program affected by that money is the financial aid program and none of that pell grant went to the student center. Is that a good argument? Not anymore. The Supreme Court bought that argument in the Grove City case, but congress changed the law. So now all the college is covered by 504 and the same would be true if we were talking about a public school district. The entire district is covered, if any part of it receives federal financial assistance. The same thing with a private, nonprofit corporation, if any part of that corporation receives federal financial assistance, the entire corporation is covered. It's a little different for a state, county or city. There, you do have to show the particulating is I you're talking about received federal financial assistance. You don't have to show the particular program did, but you have to show -- it's only limited to an agency. So let's use another example. Let's say DPS gets a federal law enforcement grant to update its crime computer. Is all of DPS covered by 504 now? Yes. What about other state agencies, are they covered because DPS got the grant? No, just DPS is. Now, the others might be covered, but only if they received funding themselves. Now, as a practical matter, many of the largest state and local government agencies do receive federal financial assistance, but the point is that not everyone does and only the ones that do are covered by 504. So that brings me back to my original question, in the coverage, is 504 broader or narrower? Again, no simple answer with regard to -- in some ways it's narrower because not all local governments are covered by 504 if they don't receive any financial assistance, they're not, while all of them are covered by Title II of the ADA, but in a big way, 504 is broader because it covers the federal government or at least a large part of it and the ADA doesn't. What about with regard to private entities, is 504 broader or narrower? Again, no simple answer. In some ways it's narrower because it doesn't reach all public accommodation like Title III of the ADA does and instead only reaches those private entities that receive federal financial assistance. And that's probably -- my guess is that more public agencies receive that assistance than private entities do, but some do. In some ways, though, it is broader than the ADA and let me mention one way in which it's broader and that is with regard to religious entities. Now, religious entities are covered equally for employment discrimination under 504 of the ADA, but ADA excludes religious entities from the architectural barriers accessibility aspects of Title III or any parts of Title III. So Title III provisions that apply to private businesses do not apply to religious entities. That's not true for 504. If the religious entity receives federal financial assistance, they are covered by 504, even if they are religious. That's probably most frequently a religious college or a religious hospital or health care center that is likely to be receiving federal financial assistance. But that's one area in which 504 is broader than the ADA. Okay, now we've talked about 504 of the regulations, who is protected, who is covered, let me again ask if there are any questions at this point on what I've covered so far. RACHEL: okay, great, you're doing a really good job of breaking down all of this material and presenting it in a very bite size understandable way. I do -- I have gotten a couple of questions about coverage. Two of them have to do with federal courts specifically. BRIAN: yes. RACHEL: if I kind of summarize looking at both of them, there is some interest in are there any nondiscrimination requirements that actually apply in federal courts and how can people with disabilities, you know, guarantee themselves due processor get interpreters if they are in federal court? BRIAN: yeah, those are very good questions. The answer to the first question to the extent I know it is cited in the materials, and that answer is that there is an internal administrative regulation that the federal courts supposedly follow regarding accessibility to people with disabilities. And there is a mechanism under that by which you can complain if you are not provided an interpreter, for example, and a citation to an article by the California p&a, our sister organization in California, is what's in the material and that has some further information about that. In terms of a way to guarantee equal access, that's a much more limited thing. As I said, there may be administrative remedies under that internal code, but in terms of, for example, a lawsuit to force an accommodation, that's very difficult because 504 doesn't apply to federal court, the ADA doesn't apply to federal courts, it applies to state and local courts, but not federal, and so you're probably left with the constitution, which certainly does have some protections built in because as we've seen in the Garrett case, they're not as extensive even as we thought they were for people with disabilities. So the constitutional protections for people with disabilities are not as extensive as we want them to be. RACHEL: yeah, there is a mention of the fifth amendment in one of these questions. BRIAN: yeah, and it's really going to depend on the circumstances. There may be a much -- there may be a very easy direct constitutional claim if you're discriminated against in a certain way. I think what's harder is providing a reasonable accommodation of some kind. I will say that I have not heard a lot of complaints about the federal courts with regard to interpreters. It's not to say that there aren't problems there, I'm sure there are, but they haven't come to us as far as I know. We certainly have heard complaints about courts, but it's more typically state or local courts that don't understand their obligations. So anyway, that's probably all I can say about the federal court system. RACHEL: okay, great. That was helpful. A little more on coverage. Does 504 cover civilian employees of the military? BRIAN: yes. The short answer to that is yes. It does not cover the uniformed military folks, but it does cover -- well, okay, the short answer is yes. 504 does apply to them. There is a whole question that I at least raise in my paper about whether employees of the federal government should pursue their claim or can pursue their claim under 504, or whether they're limited to 501 if it's an employment discrimination claim. I'm not going to get into that in any detail, but I will just point out that the rehabilitation act does cover civilian employees, either under 504 or 501, and the distinction between those two provisions is at least mentioned in the paper. RACHEL: okay, and since you actually just mentioned something about employment, let me give you this next question because you were -- this picks up on how you mention that 504 does apply to religious entities. And so the question has to do with -- does that mean that employees, say, of a hospital that receives federal financial assistance, that they are protected? BRIAN: yes, they are. Now, the point I was trying to make is that for employees of a religious entity, they are generally protected both by the ADA and by 504. The part that's left out of the ADA is the nonemployment portion. So if you're talking about a religious entity that won't allow a service animal to come in, let's say, not for their employees, but for the their clients, for their customers, that's not covered by the ADA, that is covered by 504, even if we're talking about a hospital that's owned or operated by the catholic church or a particular order or something like that. RACHEL: can I throw in one more question before you go on? BRIAN: okay. RACHEL: this one looks like it comes from somebody who is blind, and attends a state university, and they write that the textbooks which they use are often not available on audio tape. So does the state university have an obligation to help the student acquire alternate format materials? And do professors in the institution have an obligation to provide class handouts in alternate formats? BRIAN: I'm actually going to talk about education in a few minutes, but let me go ahead and say something about that because I'm not planning on getting that detailed. I think the answer is generally yes, there is an obligation to provide alternate formats at least for some things, and certainly there are obligations for accommodations or modifications that fall to the professors. That's a little bit --'s not necessarily to say that they have to provide textbooks in alternate formats. They may have to provide the material in alternate formats, but if the textbooks aren't available, then it gets a little more complicated. So, you know, I think all I'm prepared to say now is there is an obligation by colleges, state colleges, to accommodate people who are blind and I think that there is a way to probably accommodate any issues that have come up and probably an obligation to do that. Exactly how that is done is probably somewhat flexible. There is probably various options available. RACHEL: okay, great. And I just want to say to the person who sent this in, and if there are other folks out there who have similar and some specific questions, go ahead and send them in, but if you want to discuss a specific case or get some suggestions, then you can call your protection and advocacy center or you can call your DBTAC, which is who we are, and there is an 800 number for the DBTACs and there is somebody who can discuss what your rights are with you, and the number for your DBTAC is 800-949-4232. So that's a resource in addition to the protection and advocacy group. Okay, I'm going to hold these other questions and let you move on. BRIAN: okay, let me talk now about what discrimination means under 504. When I read it you at the beginning, it spoke in terms of discrimination, but the question is what does that mean? And in section 5 of the paper, try to list some of the high points of what fits into the concept of discrimination under 504. And definitely not going to go over all that now. Let me just mention three. The first is the so-called integration mandate, and just like the Title II regulations, the 504 regulations requires that a*ids, benefits and services be provided in the most integrated setting to the person's needs. You may recall that this integration mandate was the subject of the supreme court's 99 decision in the Olmstead case. And the integration mandate is one of the principle legal tools in trying to prevent the unnecessary institutionization of persons with disabilities. So my only point here is that 504 has the same kind of mandate. The second kind of discrimination I want to mention is discrimination based on class or sever it of disability. This is cited in the paper at section 5b. And it's a little bit different from sort of the most common kind of discrimination that we think about. In that common idea of discrimination, a person with a disability gets different treatment when compared to a nondisabled person, but the supreme court in part relying on 504, has recognized that congress has a more comprehensive view of discrimination of people with disabilities than that. And in 504 there have been a lot of cases that have held that it can also include discrimination based on a class of disability or based on the severity of one's disability. So this means for example that a recipient of federal financial assistance can't refuse to consider another wise qualified person for its program, let's say a program that moves people from institutions into the community, if the refusal is based solely on the severity of disability. Same thing, if we have a program that provides adult day care services,, assuming the person is otherwise qualified, they can't be excluded based on the severity of their disability. And in a more recent case, one court rejected the refusal to provide facilitated communication to a person with a disability finding that that decision was based on the severity of the person's communication disability, and violated -- would violate 504. Now, this concept of discrimination based on class or severity of disability doesn't mean that 504 requires that any benefit extended to one category of disability has to be extended to people in every other category of disability. It just means that if a person is otherwise qualified for a benefit program, the program can't exclude them just because of their label or because of their severity. The last kind of discrimination I want to mention is what's called disparate impact discrimination. Again, the sort of common -- more common kind of discrimination is called disparate treatment discrimination, in which a person with a disability is treated differently from the way people without disabilities are treated. And disparate treatment means different treatment and it is generally seen as intentional discrimination, but there is another kind of discrimination called disparate impact discrimination. And it may be unintentional, and typically, it involves rules or policies that are neutral on their face, that is they don't single out people with disabilities, but they have a discriminatory impact or effect on people with disabilities. And maybe a simple example of that is the Hawaii quarantine requirement that applies to anybody entering the state with a dog. Now, it wasn't passed to exclude service animals, and by its language, it applies to all dogs, but the reality is that it has a greater impact, a greater burden on people with visual impairments, for example, than it does on other people. So the court struck down that law or in fact required that that policy be modify in a way that would allow service animals through more expeditiously. A more recent case involves the school funding system in Kansas, and there are various ways in which the school funding is calculated, and those ways are not -- they don't necessarily mention people with disabilities, but the result at least according to the allegations in the case, is that they have a disparate impact on children with disabilities because they result in less money getting to schools that serve those children. So that could be discrimination, again sh not because the law says we're going to do this for nondisable people and we're going to do something different for disabled people, but because the effect of the law, even though it's neutral on its face, hits people with disabilities harder. All right, so we talked about three different areas, three different kinds of discrimination, integration mandate, class or severity of disability and disparate impact. None of those differ in any substantial way from similar provisions in the ADA. So, again, this is not an area in which there is a big difference. Let me move now into some specific areas that 504 regulates beginning with employment. And the first thing I want to point out is that with regard to employment, as I mentioned in section 7a of the paper, congress amended section 504 in 1992 to expressly provide that the liability standards of 504 in employment cases, are the same as those of the ADA. So that basically means now that whatever employment practice violates the ADA, also violates 504. And just as an as side, I notice that the EEOC recently announced that it's amended its rehabilitation act rules applicable to federal employees to make it clear that they adopt the ADA standards. Now, the two laws have always been seen as largely the same with regard to employment with two possible exceptions. One is reassignment as a reasonable accommodation, and the second is causation. Both of these points are mentioned in the paper at 7d and 7g. I won't say more about them unless there are specific questions, but will just note again that in view of most of the courts to consider the issue, there is no longer any basis for a difference on these issues after the 92 amendments to 504. The second thing I want to point out about employment is that while there is no longer much substantive difference between the ADA and 504, there are some notable differences in coverage, procedure and remedy, and those are listed in 7b of the paper, and I'll highlight some of them right now. The difference in coverage is pretty clear. Title I of the ADA generally applies to employers with 15 or more employees. 504 applies to employers that receive federal financial assistance, whatever their size. Again, I mentioned this earlier, I'm not going to talk about whether 504 covers the employment practices of federal employers, but just note that in section 7h of the paper, I talk about that. Okay, so who it covers is different on the employment arena, what are the other procedural differences between 504 and the ADA. There is two that I want to mention. First is it's generally held that there are no administrative exhaustion requirements for non-- against nonfederal employers in 504 cases. So those of you familiar with the ADA, you know that you have to file a charge of discrimination with the EEOC or with the Texas Commission on Human Rights or a state or local f. e. f. agency and wait until that process is completed until you can go to court. Most courts have said you do not have to do a similar thing in 504 cases. Another difference -- procedural difference is that there is no damage cap in 504 employment cases. Those of you familiar with ADA employment cases may know that there are caps on the damages you can get in an ADA case. And there is no cap in a 504 case. There is one difference in remedy that's a big one that I want to talk about and really the reason that the ILRU included this webcast in the third of its series on Garrett and its aftermath. And that difference in remedy is this: most courts have held that while the supreme court found states immune from money damages, having to pay money damages under Title I of the ADA, most courts have also found that the states have waived that immunity from 504 claims and money damages are available against the states under 504. Now, I want to explain this one a little bit, but to do so, I need to remind folks real briefly about what Garrett said. In the Garrett case, the supreme court held that suits against the states in federal court to recover money damages under Title I of the ADA were bared by eleventh amendment immunity. Remember that that holding was limited in several respects. First, it's only talking about the immunity of the states, so local governments don't have that eleventh amendment immunity. Second, it's only talking about suits for money damages. It doesn't bar suits for perspective injunctive relief against a state official or attorney's fees incurred for bringing such a claim for injunctive relief, and third, Garrett also said that the federal government can still sue the states for money damages, even under Title I of the ADA. There is at least one more limitation to Garrett, and that is that it was only talking about Title I of the ADA and not Title II, but I will note that most courts since Garrett have applied that reasoning to Title II cases as well. While there were these important limitations to Garrett, still it was definitely a setback in enforcing the ADA against the states, and the point that I'm making here, and that's been made before, is that there are other ways to proceed against the state for disability discrimination. As suggested last week, state law claims brought in state court are not bared by the eleventh amendment immunity and many of the state laws waive a state of sovereign immunity. That's true in Texas, although I'll note that the attorney general continues to contest the point. In addition to proceeding understate law, every court to consider the issue since Garrett has held that claims against the state, even for money damages, can be brought under 504. So why is that so if there is immunity from ADA claims? Well, again, let's go back to what Garrett said. It said congress didn't have the power in enacting the ADA to take away the state's eleventh amendment immunity over their objection, or to use the court's lack wafflening, congress could not abrogate that immunity. Most of the courts since Garrett have also said that congress cannot abrogate or take away involuntarily the state's eleventh amendment immunity from damages claims under 504 either, but there is a key difference between 504 and the ADA. 504 is part of a law that provides states with millions of dollars in federal aid. It's a funding statute. The ADA is not. And that makes a difference because congress can attach strings to the money that it offers to the states or to anyone else and that's what it's done. It says to the states, we, the federal government, will give you millions of dollars in federal aid, but in order to get the money, you have to agree to waive your eleventh amendment immunity from 504 claims. Now, the states could refuse that bargain, but they haven't. They've taken the money. They've accepted those terms and that's what makes all the difference. As a result, the vast majority of the lower courts to consider this question have found that the states have validly waived their immunity from 504 claims by accepting those federal funds that are conditioned that require that waiver in order to get them. Okay, even if you didn't follow that explanation and definitely don't feel bad if you didn't, remember one point, at the present time, states generally have no immunity from 504 claims even claims for money damages. Let me say one other brief thing about damages at this point: while states don't have immunity, most courts have held that money damages are only available under 504 for intentional discrimination. Now, I'll say a little bit more about that in a few minutes if I have a chance when I talk about remedies. Okay, are there any questions on what we've covered to this point? That is, 504, the regulation, who is protected, who it applies to, and the employment provision? RACHEL: okay, I have two questions, I'll give you at this point, and I'm going to hang onto some other ones and if we have time at the end I'll ask some of these other ones. The first has to do with the coverage of the ADA. You were talking about -- this question references when you were talking about the ADA and 504 and what employees they cover, and the question is that while you were clear that the ADA covers private employees -- private employers with 15 or more employees, doesn't it cover all state and local governments as well as governmental agencies regardless of the number of employees? BRIAN: it does. That issue is not 100 percent decided because of some other arguments that are made, but in general, yes, Title II applies to all government entities, state and local government entities, regardless of size and Title II has an employment component also. So most courts have said that the employment provisions can be brought under Title II against a government entity regardless of size. RACHEL: okay, but there have been courts -- BRIAN: there are a couple of cases out there that I'm aware of that say, no, you can't bring employment cases under Title II against the government, you have to bring those and all other employment cases under Title I. That's definitely the minority but it's out there and we don't know the complete answer yet. The supreme court in the Garrett case noted that distinction in the cases but said they were not going to decide it. RACHEL: interesting. Okay, I have another question which is a little more specific about someone's situation. So let me throw it out and let me know if you prefer to come back to it. Okay, this person is writing from Minnesota, and the story that they're telling has to do with a private company which received some federal funding to -- it says build a branch building in northeast Minnesota -- and somebody with a disability was terminated from this company, and now this person is being denied being allowed to continue getting insurance from the employer. And they want to know if 504 or the ADA would be helpful in their being able to resume getting insurance coverage? And I hope I -- to the person who wrote this in -- I hope I represented that clearly. I think I did. BRIAN: I don't know the answer to that because it depends on a lot of things that can't tell from the question. I will say generally, that the law does cover certain kinds of discrimination in insurance, and in addition to disability discrimination in insurance, there may also be provisions in other federal laws like the cobra provisions that provides some rights to that person, and one part I couldn't tell is whether there is also an employment discrimination claim, that is, they lost their job because of disability discrimination? And obviously to the extent that's true, there may be some relief there. And some of the relief in general you're supposed to be made whole, and so the relief you seek in that discrimination case might affect your benefits. So I think that's probably all that I can say in a general way about that. RACHEL: okay, and then this person might want to contact and I'll be happy to send an e-mail back, your local resources who might know more about the laws in your area and with your insurance specifically. Okay, I did just get -- this is going back a step or two, Brian, but if you have the patience, we've got another question about -- actually just asking if you can restate the coverage having to do with religious organizations under 504 and the ADA. BRIAN: yeah, there is no difference in employment. And so in general, an employer, whether it's religious or not, is covered by the ADA, and if it receives federal financial assistance also covered by 504. So that's not where the difference kicks in. The difference kicks in in nonemployment cases, and in those nonemployment cases, the ADA does not apply to a religious -- to an organization that's run by a religious entity. Whereas 504 does apply if it receives financial assistance. RACHEL: okay, so you're saying then the ADA does cover employees, say, of a church? BRIAN: that's right. It could cover employees of a church. Now, it gets more complicated because there are other restrictions on coverage and the one that -- in the religious context the one that jumps to mind is the so-called ministerial exception, and in general, a minister is not covered under any of these laws. And that's because sort of a recognition that there are certain internal decisions that are so bound up with religious principles, that the courts don't have business getting involved in them. But an employee, an employee of Seton Hospital, let's say Seton is run by -- is owned by the catholic church, I don't know if that's true, but let's say it is, an employee of that hospital is going to be covered. There are some differences when it's a religious context, but they are limited, but in general, employees are covered. RACHEL: okay, that actually answered another question I had here. And I don't -- let me put this out and let us know if you're going to cover this in today's presentation or not. It has to do with asking if you can address the accessibility to the internet as it relates to 504? BRIAN: that's a good one. I'm not going to talk about that. Let me just point out that the -- probably the more important internet accessibility laws are not 504, but are 508, which deals with telecommunication access. There is a state law dealing with accessible websites, and there are other provisions that might be more applicable. I do think that 504 probably has some application in a general way, that is to say, I don't know of any 504 regulation that specifically addresses it, but because 504 prohibits discrimination, and let's say a person without disabilities can access the forms of the Texas Workforce Commission on the internet, but a person with a visual impairment can't because the website is not accessible, again, it may violate other laws, but it may also violate 504, but I probably can't say much more about that today. RACHEL: okay. Great. I'm going to hand it back to you now. BRIAN: all right, I'm going to move on now to architectural barriers, generally, and the requirements of 504 that relate to architectural barriers. And for those of you familiar with Title II of the ADA, a lot of this will be sort of the outline of this will be familiar. First, 504 requires a self-evaluation. And actually there is a correction to the pape other this point. It's section 8bi. I wrote that a public entity must evaluates it services, policies and practices and the effects there of that do not or may not meet the requirements, and then I say of the Title II regulations, and that really should be of 504. But anyway, the point is that the self-evaluation was to look at those things and to list areas that the recipient of federal aid needed to make changes. There is also a transition plan requirement if structural changes are required. So if in making the self-evaluation, the college or the hospital or wlaefr the entity is, realize es that there are going to need to be some architectural barriers removed, then there is supposed to be a transition plan. I won't speak to the requirements of that. They're in the paper generally at 9cii. And both of those requirements are similar to Title II and there is a notable and obvious difference and that is the effective date. The Title II self-evaluation was to be completed in January of 93, and the Title II transition plans completed in January of 95. By contrast, 504 was -- the self-evaluation was to be completed within one year of the effective date of the 504 regulations, and the transition plan within three years of that date. Now, for most recipients, that effective date is probably June 3rd of 77. So that means that most self-evaluations should have been done by December of 77 and most transdigs plans -- most of the barrier removal listed in transition plans completed by June of 80. So more than 20 years ago. Question, was all that done? I'll let you be the judge, but if it wasn't, and there are things still not completed, there are some pretty old violations of 504 out there. Is there a difference in the way that 504 treats new construction and old construction like there is in the ADA? Yes, like the ADA, new construction and alterations have to meet certain accessibility standards. One difference is the standards may be different from those in Title II. Title II allows the government entity to choose ADAAG or UFAS, two different sets of standards that are largely the same. The standards that apply in 504 are a little bit different and they are mentioned at 9biii of the paper. But much more important difference probably is again with regard to the effective date. So when the ADA is talking about new construction as being, let's say, post 92 construction, under 504, we're talking about construction that took place after June of 77, so obviously a lot more public buildings are covered and are considered new construction under 504 than are considered new construction under Title II. Again, the new construction, they have to follow these certain accessibility standards. What about old construction, that is facilities that were built prior to 504, prior to the 504 regulations? Like Title II, the 504 regulations do not require that each element of every facility be made accessible as long as the programs or activities that are carried on by the recipient when viewed in its entirety is readily accessible to a person with a disability. And this is the so-called program access standard. And it's the same one used in ADA Title II. Let me give you an example. Let's say that a college has a two story classroom building, no elevator, it's old construction, it's built before 77, and least say the only thing on the second floor are classrooms that are identical to classrooms on the first floor. Well, the college might choose to a comb data student in a wheelchair by making sure that any of that students' classes that were originally scheduled to meet on the second floor are moved to first floor classrooms and that would be acceptable. But what if on the second floor there aren't just classrooms, but there is the university art gallery, or the observatory from the as stropb my department. So these are unique facilities and locations, and to ensure program access to those, 504 is going to require that they either be relocated or that an elevator be installed, otherwise a person with a wheelchair would not have equivalent access to those particular programs or activities. I mentioned a difference between 504 and Title II on the standards involved and on the dates involved. There is one other difference that I want to mention, and that is the so-called small provider exception under 504. And under this exception which is in the paper at 9ciii, a provider that has fewer than 15 employees may not be required even to meet the program access standard at certain circumstances -- limited circumstances, and again that's in the paper. Remember that the flexible program access standard only applies to old construction. New construction, meaning for most places post 77 construction, must meet accessibility guidelines. All right, are there any questions that came up dealing with this architectural barriers piece? RACHEL: I did get one question having to do with a transition plan, basically wanting to know what's the effect or ram if I indications if an agency failed to create a transition plan? BRIAN: that's another very good question. And I'll just make two points here: first, the case law almost exclusively covers a transition plan requirements of Title II, but it is split on whether they allow an individual person with a disability to sue to enforce that provision. So about half the cases that have taken up that issue say yes, a person with a disability can sue to enforce that transition plan requirement, and about half the cases have said no, that's not something an individual can take up. Now, if because there was no transition plan no curb cuts were put in or no ramp was put in to the public library or something, obviously the person with the disability can sue about those things, but they aren't necessarily suing because the transition plan wasn't done, they were suing because the architectural barriers weren't removed. RACHEL: okay, great. I'm going to let you keep going. BRIAN: okay. I'm getting close to my time being up, but I think I can cover what I intended to cover. The next area I want to mention is very little bit about is education. And that's in section 10 of the paper. I'll note that it's sort of broken into two pieces, one piece deals with primary and secondary public schools, and a lot of the provisions there are generally similar to the provisions in the main special ed law idea, the individuals with disabilities education act. Two differences are with regard to which students are covered because idea has a different way of defining who is entitled to it iser advices. 504 applies to people with a disability under the standards of the ADA and we've all come to understand someone who has an impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. So who is covered might be different. Second area of difference is with regard to the due process rights. Idea has very specific requirements for the school districts to follow to provide due process and a hearing and notice and various things to the parents and the child. 504 is more general. The idea requirements will satisfy 504, but other things will also satisfy the procedural requirements of 504, too, things that are not quite as detailed as the idea requirements. Unlike idea, but similar to Title II of the ADA, 504 also applies to postsecondary schools, that is colleges and universities, again, assuming they receive federal financial aid and very, very many of them do. Some of those requirements are referenced in section 10c of the paper. Obviously there are some differences between the rights that you have in college and the rights that you have in public school before college. For example, in public school, you have a right under 504 and under idea, to a free appropriate public education. There isn't that kind of right for college education, and really college education is focused more on making sure that you aren't denied admission because of a disability and making sure that you get academic adjustments that you need, interpreters, tty's, architectural barrier removal, et cetera. So that's the focus of the college level requirements of 504. Let me skip now to housing. Again, I'm just going to say a couple of quick things. I tried to mention some of the more important provisions in the paper at section 12. The first thing I want to mention is that the 504 regulations do require a certain portion of certain kinds of newly constructed housing to meet accessibility requirements. And this is normally called or referred to as the 5 percent/2 percent rule. It's mentioned in the paper at section 12a and for those projects that are covered, 5 percent of their units must be accessible to people with mobility impairments and 2 percent of their units must be made accessible to people with visual or hearing impairments. And remember though that with regard to housing and 504, we're talking about programs receiving federal financial assistance. So 504 is really talking about public housing and mostly not private housing. It's worth noting that under Texas law, housing built through the low income housing tax credit program is required to meet the standards of 504. Okay, on transportation, again, that's covered -- not covered, but addressed in the paper. I'm going to say even less about it here. I'll just state that the 504 transportation regulations adopt standards of the ADA transportation regulations and aisle ee just point out while 504 has some application to airports, it doesn't apply to the airlines themselves. They're covered by the Air Carriers Access Act. That's all I want to say about the various areas that 504 has regulations designed to address, and I want to move now to sort of the last piece of this, which is enforcement and remedies. Before I do that, are there any other questions, Rachel? RACHEL: no -- I think it makes more sense for you to continue on and address that. BRIAN: all right, let's move on to how 504 is enforced. First, you can file an administrative complaint with generally either the federal agency that is discriminating or the federal agency that's providing the federal assistance to the agency that's discriminating, but an important point is that it is generally held that filing that administrative complaint is not required. There are some exceptions to that rule in which an administrative complaint is required, and this requirement -- these requirements that you file an administrative complaint are sometimes called administrative exhaustion requirements because you have to exhaust your administrative remedies before you're permitted to file a lawsuit. Some of the circumstances under which there is this exhaustion requirement in 504 cases are mentioned in 14d of the paper, and in general, they involve circumstances where a 504 claim is brought in conjunction with a claim under another law that does require filing an administrative complaint or when the 504 claim is closely related to another law that has this exhaustion requirement, and probably the most common areas where this can create a problem is in the special ed context, and in employment discrimination against the federal government. I'll just say real briefly that with regard to special ed, the courts are split. A lot of people have brought 504 lawsuits against the public school system. The school district defends saying you didn't exhaust your idea requirements. They say we're not suing under IDEA, and the courts are split on whether you have to exhaust under IDEA, whether or not you're suing under IDEA. So that's one place where there can be a problem. With regard to employment claims against the federal government, again, this gets into the whole question of can you sue under 504 for employment discrimination against the federal government or do those claims have to be brought under 501? And the courts are split on the answer to that, but in general, most courts say you have to exhaust your remedies whichever one you're suing under, and those remedies are set out in 501. But again, the general rule is you don't have to exhaust. The ultimate administrative remedy is a cut off of federal funds for the particular program that's not in compliance with 504, although I personally am not aware of that occurring. The other way that 504 is enforced, obviously, is through a lawsuit. Some of those lawsuits may be brought by the federal government, but the large majority of 504 cases are blot by private individuals, just like under the ADA. The paper in section 14 describes some of the elements of a 504 claim and I'm not going to repeat that here. The last topic I want to address very briefly is remedies. It's dealt with in section 15 of the paper. 504 remedies may actual or compensatory damages. That means an award of money damages to compensate the victim of discrimination for the harm that was suffered. That harm might be out-of-pocket expenses, but it might also be mental anguish. As we discussed earlier, these damages are available even against the states, and as I mentioned earlier, money damages may require a showing of intentional discrimination. The courts are not real clear on exactly what intentional discrimination means. It's probably a little more clear in the employment context, but outside of the employment context, it is generally thought to mean proof that the defendant was deliberately indifferent to the rights of the person with a disability and the cases have looked, for example, at how clearly it was pointed out to the government agency, let's say, that they were violating the person's rights, how quickly they tried to respond to that, how clearly the law was established on this -- in this area, those kinds of things. What about punitive damages? Well, the supreme court held just a few weeks ago in the Barnes v. Gorman case that punitive damages are not available under 504 or under Title II of the ADA. Now, that case came up in the context of a governmental entity, a city. And the court said no punitive damages. It is probably possible to argue that punitive damages may still be available under 504 if you're dealing with a private entity that receives federal aid, but my prediction is that that will be a difficult argument in the courts after Barnes v. Gorman. Other relief available in 504 cases includes injunctive relief which can be very important and attorneys' fees. The last part of the paper, section 16, I'm not going to go over, but it just mentions that there are some other important rights in the rehabilitation act outside of 504, and you might look at that. I'm going to summarize here in about two minutes the ways in which we've seen differences between 504 and the ADA and while I'm doing that, I invite any last questions here. Okay, so what are the differences? First, there are a lot more places to look for 504 law because there is at least three sets of regulations you should look at a&m cable to any claim. Second, 504 regulations can help you prove even an ADA claim, especially if it's on the question of definition of disability. And third, whose covered by 504, who is governed by the terms of 504 is different than who is covered fwi ADA. We also learned that 504 might be a better place to look for relief than the ADA in these circumstances: one, if you have a complaint against a federal agency or post office. Two, if you have a nonemployment complaint against a religious institution like a health care facility owned by the church or college that a religious in nature; three, if you have a complaint against a private employer that has fewer than 15 employees, but which might receive federal or give out federal aid; four, if you have sustained actual damages that are going to exceed the damage cap under Title I of the ADA because there aren't any damage caps in a 504 case; five, if you're seeking money damages against a state because the state has waived its immunity from 504 claims; six, if you've missed the deadline for filing an ADA charge because under -- unlike the ADA, in most circumstances, there is no administrative exhaustion requirements for bring thing 504 claim. I don't know if any of you have tried it, but in fact, EEOC will generally -- last time I tried it which was many years ago -- EEOC sent me a letter saying we don't handle these cases. We don't take these cases. I think that was six. Seven is there are architectural bearers and facilities that were built oral terd between 77 and 92. Again, if the building you are looking at was built between 77 and 92, it's going to be new construction under 504, but it's not new construction under the ADA and that may mean that 504 is a better route for you. And last, if you're finding that certain newly construct public housing has no accessible units, 504 might be the place to look because 504 and also the fair housing act have some specific accessibility requirements for housing, while Title II of the ADA doesn't. That is the end of my comments. If there are any questions we have time to take, I'd be happy to hear them. RACHEL: okay. You actually answered a number of questions with the last bit that you did and I just want to remind people, too, I know this is a lot of information to take in. I'm assuming most people have looked at the material that Brian prepared and you can go back and refer to it. It's very helpful. And also this presentation will be archived, which means not only can you go back and listen to it, but there also will be a transcript. So if you wanted to go through and be able to just copy out that lastlies that Brian just listed, it will be up there in a transcript for you to look back to. I think I had one final question, which is probably all the amount of time we have, and then we can do our sign off, and this has to do with -- well, the question is can you comment generally on how long it takes for a complaint to make its way through a federal agency and what rights does a person have to be present at administrative hearings? BRIAN: no, I can't. My sense is that it varies greatly, although my personal experience has been that they take quite a long time. I'm sure there are some that haven't, but the administrative complaints that I'm aware of have all taken a long time, and by that I mean probably in excess of a year, although I can't say for sure because I don't remember them all. And in terms of your right to appear, I don't know. I would have to look that up in the applicable 504 regulations which would include the coordinating regulations, but which are more likely going to be the agency regulations that you're dealing with. RACHEL: okay, great. Well, thank you so much, Brian. I know you and I discussed before the webcast how it might be possible to actually get in so much information into an hour and a half, and you did a very good job. So thank you, and again, this presentation will be archived. It is a lot of information, so feel free to go back. The link should be up tomorrow and you can listen again and you can download the transcript as well. And there also will be the archives from parts 1 and 2 of this series, which we've referred to. And we hope that this series has been helpful for you. We hope today's presentation has been helpful. Please do give us feedback. There are evaluation forms up on the website, and we would love to hear from you. And then finally, before I get cut off, I just want to thank everybody who made this possible. Of course Brian with all of your hard work, the research, the paper, the time on the call with us. BRIAN: sure, my pleasure. Thanks a lot. RACHEL: thank you, and NIDRR for funding this initiative through funding DLRP, and this whole presentation certainly would not be possible without the efforts of a whole gang of folks here in-house at ILRU, and that includes Marj Gordon, Sharon Finney, Dawn Heinsohn, and Mark Richards, as well as the technical expertise of Rob Dickehuth, and the fabulous services of our realtime captioner, Marie Bryant. So thank you everybody. We hope this has been very helpful and we look forward to interacting with you again in future programs. Have a great afternoon, every one. Bye-bye.