Justice Department Opinion Says Olmstead Ruling Does Not Require Community Care for Disabled Patients

The Justice Department released a new legal opinion Thursday stating that states are not required by law to integrate mentally disabled patients with their peers by providing community or home-based care. The opinion was authored by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lanora Pettit and posted on the DOJ's website. It reinterprets the 1999 Supreme Court case Olmstead v.

LC. The Olmstead decision held that people with disabilities are entitled to receive services in their communities rather than an institution. The case was brought by two women with mental and intellectual disabilities who were repeatedly institutionalized at facilities in Georgia.

The Supreme Court held that the state violated the women's civil rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act. In its opinion, the Office of Legal Counsel stated that over the past two decades, DOJ's Civil Rights Division has relied on its integration mandate and Olmstead to pressure states into discharging individuals from mental-health institutions.

The opinion states that the Civil Rights Division has successfully elicited consent decrees, remedial orders, or out-of-court agreements in nearly a dozen states.

It states that the Olmstead finding held that unjustified institutional isolation of persons with disabilities is a form of discrimination under federal law. CBS News reached out to the Justice Department for comment on the new OLC opinion.

The OLC's new opinion does not change the law and does not serve as any legal precedent. "For decades, courts have recognized that people with disabilities have the right to live, work, and learn in their communities rather than being unnecessarily segregated from society," said Regan Rush, a former civil rights attorney at the DOJ who now serves as director of a Democracy Forward project called Red Line for Civil Rights.