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Court Rules Agencies May Deny Placement Based on Prospective Parent’s Disability
By Lisa Peterson, Esq., Spence-Chapin Services to Families and Children
The first court to address the applicability of the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) to adoption and foster care agencies has weighed
in, with a decision supporting the right of adoption and foster care
agencies to take physical disability into account as a "legitimate
consideration" when assessing an individual’s fitness to become
an adoptive or foster parent, provided that the agency does not routinely
exclude disabled applicants from consideration by reason of their disability
In Adams v. Monroe County, 21 F. Supp. 2d 235 (W.D.N.Y. 1998), the
court dismissed an action against the Monroe County Department of Social
Services initiated by a blind woman, Kimberly Adams, and her husband,
Leverne. The couple, who had an 11-year-old biological son at the time
they registered with the agency, had applied to become parents and subsequently
had expressed a willingness to serve as foster parents. Upon inquiring
of the agency as to why they had not been considered for a certain 4-year-old
boy, the couple was advised that the child was "extremely active"
and the agency was concerned about the mother's ability to safely supervise
him in light of her blindness.
The court held that the agency’s determination that it would not be
in the best interests of the 4-year-old child-or any other child available
at the time to be placed in plaintiff’s home because of the risk of
physical harm did not constitute unlawful discrimination. To the extent
that Mrs. Adams’ blindness was taken into consideration by the agency,
the court believed it was a legitimate consideration. The court stated
that the agency’s role "was not to find a child for the plaintiff's
home, but the opposite: to find suitable homes for children." In this
vein, the court concluded that the agency’s determination that "it would
not be in the available children’s best interests to be placed in plaintiff's
home because of the risk of physical harm did not constitute unlawful
discrimination. Throughout its opinion, the court appeared to be persuaded
that the agency had found that only "certain children"-the children
"available" at the time-could be jeopardized by Mrs. Adams’ with a blindness.
The court concluded that the agency had undertaken a fitness assessment
on a case-by-case basis and that a child might become available in the
future for whom the Adamses would be a good fit, notwithstanding Mrs.
Adams’ blindness.
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