Federal judge approves settlement with disabled Oregon workers

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge has accepted a proposed settlement affecting employment opportunities for thousands of Oregonians with disabilities.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Janice Stewart approved the settlement on Tuesday.

The settlement stems from a class-action lawsuit filed in 2012. The suit alleged that Oregon relies too heavily on so-called “sheltered workshops,” where people with developmental or intellectual disabilities work almost exclusively with disabled co-workers.

The lawsuit alleged that Oregon’s practice prevented people with disabilities from working with non-disabled peers in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

The U.S. Department of Justice joined the suit a year after it was filed.

Among the concessions in the settlement, the state agreed to reduce the number of people in sheltered workshops by 20 percent to a maximum of 1,530 over the next two years.

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News release from Oregon Dept. of Human Services:

The Oregon Department of Justice, the Oregon Department of Human Services and the Oregon Department of Education expressed satisfaction today that a federal court accepted a settlement in Lane v. Brown, the class action involving employment services that Oregon provides to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

“We are pleased that the Judge upheld the settlement, confirming Oregon’s commitment to integrated, community jobs,” Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said.

“This settlement ensures that we will continue efforts to improve employment opportunities and services for people with disabilities and effectively implement Oregon’s Employment First policy,” Mike Maley, Statewide Employment First Coordinator, Department of Human Services, said.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Janice Stewart, who oversaw the case, ruled after a day of testimony from people affected by the settlement. Lane v. Brown was the first case of its kind in the country. The case was settled after the parties reached agreement on a number of issues. This resolution was reached after significant compromises were made by all parties.

In 2013, with the adoption of Executive Order 13-04, Oregon changed the services it provides to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities by committing to support people in “sheltered workshops” and those transitioning from school to find, gain and maintain employment in integrated settings. With this settlement of the Lane v. Brown case, Oregon has agreed to continue to implement the Executive Order and carry out other commitments already made by the state — including specific steps to decrease the number of people receiving services in sheltered workshops and to increase the number of people working in integrated community jobs.

Highlights of the settlement include:

* Substantial Progress: The agreement acknowledges that “Oregon has made substantial progress in providing employment services to and improving employment outcomes” for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD). The agreement is intended to “reflect and take into account this substantial progress.”

* Continue Existing State Reforms: The settlement is largely built around what Oregon has already set out to do. The state will continue to carry out a broad range of system reforms instituted under Executive Orders. These reforms include “closing the front door,” or ending new entries to sheltered workshops, as well as providing career development plans to people who have worked in workshops, certifying service providers, coordinating more closely with the schools, and increasing services designed to achieve integrated employment. As provided in the Executive Order, the state will provide employment services to 7,000 people with I/DD, including those in workshops and transition-age youth. (The Orders are Executive Order 13-04, issued in April 2013 , and Executive Order 15-01, issued in Feb. 2015.)

* Competitive Integrated Employment: The Department of Human Services will help 1,115 people who have worked in workshops obtain community jobs at a competitive wage. The 1,115 job number was taken directly from DHS’s Integrated Employment Plan. The state is agreeing to carry out the commitment that it made in its plan.

* Goal of 20 hours of work per week: DHS will issue guidance that the recommended standard for services is the opportunity to work at least 20 hours per week, if that is what the individual chooses. DHS also will establish and promote a goal that all people with I/DD who want to work in the community will have an opportunity to pursue competitive employment that allows them to work the maximum number of hours consistent with their abilities and preferences.

* Sheltered Workshops: In the next two years, DHS will carry out its plan to reduce the number of people with I/DD in sheltered workshops (from 1,926 to 1,530) and reduce the hours they work (from 93,530 hours to 66,100 hours per month). These goals are also taken from the Integrated Employment Plan.

* Flexibility: The state has flexibility to revise its Executive Order. The state also can seek relief from the requirements in the agreement in the event of an economic downturn, as described in the agreement.

* Monitoring: Oregon will continue to provide detailed data reports, and Oregon’s performance under the agreement will be assessed by an independent reviewer.

The full settlement is published and available at: http://www.oregon.gov/dhs/dhsnews/Documents/lane-v-brown-settlement.pdf .

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U.S. Dept. of Justice news release:

WASHINGTON – In a Dec. 29, 2015, order, the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon approved a settlement agreement between the Justice Department, a class of private plaintiffs and the state of Oregon, which resolved the department’s and the class plaintiffs’ claims against the state under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The agreement will impact approximately 7,000 Oregonians with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) who can and want to work in typical employment settings in the community. The private plaintiffs were represented by the Center for Public Representation, Disability Rights Oregon and the law firms of Miller Nash Graham & Dunn LLP and Perkins Coie LLP. The agreement resolves a class action lawsuit by private plaintiffs in which the department intervened. The parties’ settlement agreement was approved by U.S. Magistrate Judge Janice Stewart of the District of Oregon, who presided over the lawsuit.

In the department’s lawsuit, it alleged that Oregon’s employment services system unnecessarily placed people with I/DD in, or at risk of entering, sheltered workshops instead of in integrated jobs in the community, in violation of the ADA. As interpreted by the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Olmstead v. L.C., the ADA affords individuals with disabilities the right to receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs.

Sheltered workshops are segregated facilities that exclusively or primarily employ people with disabilities. They are usually large, institutional facilities in which people with disabilities have little or no contact with non-disabled persons besides paid staff. People with I/DD in sheltered workshops typically earn wages that are well below minimum wage, sometimes pennies per hour. By contrast, supported employment services assist people with I/DD to prepare for, gain and succeed in integrated employment at competitive wages. Approximately 450,000 people with I/DD across the country spend their days in segregated sheltered workshops and facility-based day programs.

Approximately 1,900 Oregonians with disabilities currently receive services in sheltered workshops. Since the initiation of the lawsuit, approximately 3,900 Oregonians with disabilities have received services in sheltered workshops, and historically hundreds of students have transitioned each year from Oregon public schools directly into sheltered workshops.

The agreement calls for 1,115 people in sheltered workshops to receive jobs in the community at competitive wages over the next seven years. In addition, 7,000 people will receive employment services that will afford them the opportunity to work in the community, including at least 4,900 youth ages 14 to 24 years old, who are exiting school. At least half of the youth served will receive an Individual Plan of Employment, which sets forth the services and supports necessary to achieve competitive employment, from Oregon’s vocational rehabilitation system.

The settlement resolves the first class action lawsuit in the nation to challenge a state funded and administered employment service system, including sheltered workshops, as a violation of the ADA’s integration mandate. The class action, Lane v. Kitzhaber (since renamed Lane v. Brown), was filed in January 2012 by eight named individuals and United Cerebral Palsy of Oregon and Southwest Washington, on behalf of themselves and other individuals with I/DD who are in Oregon sheltered workshops or have been referred to sheltered workshops.

In March 2013, the Department of Justice moved to intervene in the lawsuit, seeking to vindicate the rights of thousands of individuals with I/DD across Oregon. The department’s claims included that Oregon violated the ADA by unnecessarily segregating adults with I/DD in sheltered workshops and by placing Oregon youth with I/DD at unnecessary risk of segregation in sheltered workshops.

“Work is fundamental to contributing to and being fully included in the community,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Civil Rights Division. “People with disabilities deserve opportunities to work alongside their friends, peers and neighbors without disabilities and to earn fair wages, access equal opportunities for advancement and to achieve social and economic independence.

“We are pleased that the state of Oregon has fully embraced integrated employment services for people with disabilities, and we look forward to seeing the ways in which thousands of Oregonians with intellectual and developmental disabilities will contribute, grow and advance in typical workplaces throughout the state.”

“Individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities are valuable members of our community,” said U.S. Attorney Billy J. Williams of the District of Oregon. “They contribute to our workforce, our diversity, and they enrich our environment. We have an obligation to remove barriers to their full participation in society. The final approval of the settlement agreement by the court is a great step toward ensuring that sheltered workshops in Oregon will no longer be used to unnecessarily segregate the intellectually and developmentally disabled.”

The Civil Rights Division enforces the ADA, which authorizes the Attorney General to investigate whether a state is serving individuals in the most integrated settings appropriate to his or her needs. Please visit www.ada.gov/olmstead to learn more about the division’s ADA Olmstead enforcement efforts and www.justice.gov/crt to learn more about the other laws enforced by the Civil Rights Division.