Trump DOJ takes extraordinary step of asking court to undo its own victory

The Justice Department of the Trump administration has requested that a federal appeals court cancel the courtroom victory that the government won against Florida concerning the way children with complex medical needs are treated.

On Thursday, NPR said the Justice Department made the request in August, asking the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to set aside its March decision and return the case to the district court. This came after the Justice Department reversed its long-held view that federal disability law requires states to help people receive care in community settings whenever appropriate, rather than unnecessarily placing them in institutions.

The case dates back to 2013, when the Justice Department brought legal action against Florida under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It was claimed that Florida had not offered a sufficient number of in-home and community-based services for children with medical conditions, which had caused some families to have to place their children in nursing homes and had left others at risk of being institutionalized.

In 2023, after many years of legal action, a district court gave a decision in favor of the government and required Florida to alter its Medicaid system. The injunction required the state to improve care coordination and ensure that medically complex children received at least 90 percent of the private-duty nursing services they were authorized to receive.

Florida filed an appeal, but on March 31, the 11th Circuit maintained the government's victory by affirming the district court's findings of liability and deciding that the violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act were widespread enough to warrant systemwide relief, although it altered several aspects of the injunction.

The Justice Department then altered its legal stance. In its June 18 opinion, the Office of Legal Counsel at the department stated that neither Title II of the ADA nor Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act imposes an ‘integration mandate’ on states. The opinion acknowledged that its interpretation was "out of step with the common understanding" of the Supreme Court's 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C.

As a result, on August 13, the department submitted an unopposed motion to the 11th Circuit requesting that its March ruling be set aside and the case be sent back to the district court.

Jennifer Mathis, a disability rights lawyer employed by the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, said to NPR that the reversal was "shocking."

“To do that in a case that involves ripping children away from families, taking them out of the homes where they have families that want to take care of them, and to force those children to grow up in an institution, really is just unthinkable to me and is incredibly heartless,” Mathis said.