On March 31, 2025 RBGG filed an opening brief with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of the family of a Texas man who was denied life-saving care because of his disabilities. The appellants’ brief is here. On April 7, 2025 the Disability Rights Education Defense Fund and other disability rights organizations filed an amici curiae brief in support of appellants. That brief is here.
As stated in appellants’ brief:
“Michael Hickson went to the St. David’s Healthcare Partnership hospital(“Hospital”) in June 2020 to seek treatment for an acute respiratory illness. When he was admitted, Hospital staff determined that Mr. Hickson had a 70% chance of survival.
One week later, Mr. Hickson was dead, not because his doctors had tried their best to save him and failed, but because his doctors determined that they would not treat him. The doctors’ stated reason for denying Mr. Hickson treatment was that he was not “walking” or “talking.” In other words, it was because Mr. Hickson was disabled.
Mr. Hickson’s widow—who had begged her husband’s doctors to treat him, but whose pleas were disregarded by both Defendants and Mr. Hickson’s court-appointed guardian—and his son filed this lawsuit for disability discrimination, violation of the Fourteenth Amendment right to life, negligence, and intentional inflection of emotional distress.
The district court dismissed those claims because, among other reasons, it determined as a matter of law that a medical treatment decision cannot form the basis of a disability discrimination lawsuit under either the Rehabilitation Act or the Affordable Care Act. As explained below, that conclusion was incorrect. This Court should reverse.”