Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller
The Supreme Court ruled that people suing federally funded organizations for disability discrimination cannot recover money for emotional distress, even when emotional harm is their only injury.
The decision creates a significant gap in civil rights protection: victims of discrimination by federally funded schools, hospitals, and clinics are left without any remedy if their injuries are purely emotional — unlike victims covered by other anti-discrimination laws, who can still recover for mental anguish.
“It is one thing to say that funding recipients will know the basic, general rules. It is quite another to assume that they will know the contours of every contract doctrine, no matter how idiosyncratic or exceptional.”
The majority explains why funding recipients cannot be presumed to anticipate specialized contract-law exceptions, only the general rules.
How it got here: A federal trial court dismissed Cummings's complaint; the Fifth Circuit affirmed; Cummings asked the Supreme Court to hear the case and it agreed.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Jane Cummings, a deaf and legally blind woman who communicates primarily in American Sign Language, asked a small physical therapy clinic in the Dallas area to provide an ASL interpreter at her appointments. The clinic refused, telling her she could use written notes or lip-reading instead. Cummings went elsewhere for care, then sued the clinic under two federal anti-discrimination laws. The only injuries she claimed were emotional: humiliation, frustration, and distress at being turned away.
The question before the Court
When a federally funded business discriminates against a person with a disability and the only real harm is emotional — humiliation, frustration, and distress — can that person sue for money to compensate that emotional suffering?
The Court's answer
No — the Court ruled that emotional distress damages are not recoverable under the Rehabilitation Act or the Affordable Care Act. Both laws work by attaching conditions to federal money: businesses and organizations that accept federal funding promise not to discriminate, in what the Court treats as a kind of contract with the government. Because of that contract-like structure, funding recipients can only be held liable for consequences they had fair warning of when they accepted the money. The Court looks to ordinary contract law to identify those consequences — and under contract law, emotional distress damages are generally not available for breach of contract. That means funding recipients had no clear notice they might face such a remedy, so the Court ruled it unavailable.
The Court also rejected the argument that a recognized exception in contract law — allowing emotional distress recovery where a breach is particularly likely to cause emotional harm — should apply here. That exception is neither uniformly followed nor consistently defined across states, so it could not provide the "clear notice" the law requires.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Students who face discrimination at school, patients turned away by federally funded clinics, and others in similar situations may walk away from court empty-handed if their only injuries are emotional — even when those injuries are real and severe. The ruling applies across several major civil rights laws and could affect thousands of future discrimination lawsuits until Congress acts to change it.
What changes now
The Fifth Circuit's ruling is upheld, and Cummings has no damages remedy for her emotional injuries under the two statutes she sued under. Going forward, plaintiffs suing federally funded organizations under the Rehabilitation Act, the ACA, Title VI, or Title IX for discrimination will not be able to recover emotional distress damages unless Congress amends those laws. The dissent explicitly invites Congress to fix what it calls an inequity, noting that victims covered by other anti-discrimination laws — like Title VII — can still recover for emotional harm.
What this does not decide
The ruling applies only to anti-discrimination laws that operate through the Spending Clause framework — the Rehabilitation Act, the ACA, Title VI, and Title IX. It does not eliminate emotional distress damages under Title VII (workplace discrimination), 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (civil rights claims against government officials), or any other statute that expressly provides for such damages or has an express cause of action.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Kavanaugh
Justice Kavanaugh agreed with the result but wrote separately to argue that the contract-law analogy the Court has used for decades is a flawed tool for resolving remedies questions in implied-right-of-action cases. He would instead ground the analysis in the separation of powers: it is Congress's job, not the Court's, to create causes of action and expand available remedies. He argued that principle more directly supports the conclusion that courts should not be authorizing emotional distress damages in implied suits under these statutes.
Dissent — Justice Breyer
Justice Breyer accepted the majority's contract-law framework but disagreed with how it was applied. In his view, the relevant comparison is not all contracts generally, but contracts analogous to anti-discrimination promises — nonpecuniary agreements where emotional harm is the foreseeable and primary injury. Contract law has long allowed emotional distress recovery in exactly those circumstances, so funding recipients should be on notice. He also highlighted that the ruling creates an anomaly: victims of the same discrimination can recover emotional distress damages under Title VII or § 1983, but not under the Spending Clause statutes at issue here.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court began with the Spending Clause framework: Congress enacted the Rehabilitation Act and the ACA by conditioning federal money on a promise not to discriminate — a structure the Court treats as essentially a contract between the government and the funding recipient. Because recipients agree voluntarily, they can only be held liable for consequences they clearly understood when they accepted the funds.
- To determine what consequences a funding recipient is on notice of, the Court applied the rule from Barnes v. Gorman (2002): recipients are presumed to know they may face the remedies 'traditionally available in suits for breach of contract,' but only those. More unusual or specialized remedies require additional notice the statutes do not provide.
- Under Barnes, the relevant question is whether a remedy is 'generally,' 'traditionally,' or 'normally' available in contract actions. Hornbook contract law — the most basic, widely shared rules taught in every law school — says emotional distress is generally not compensable for breach of contract, just as punitive damages are generally not available. Both occupy the same category: remedies a recipient need not anticipate.
- Cummings argued that a contract-law exception recognized by the Restatement (Second) of Contracts — allowing emotional distress recovery where a breach is particularly likely to cause emotional harm — should apply because discrimination predictably inflicts mental anguish. The Court rejected this as inconsistent with Barnes, which already declined to follow an analogous punitive-damages exception: Barnes stopped at the general rule, not the exceptions.
- The Court also found, independently, that the Restatement exception Cummings cited does not reflect a consensus rule. After surveying the states, the Court found no majority position on when emotional distress damages may be awarded in contract suits, and many states flatly reject the Restatement formulation. Without a widely shared rule, there is no basis to say a funding recipient would have had 'clear notice' of such liability.
- Because emotional distress damages are not 'traditionally available in suits for breach of contract,' and because no widespread consensus rule would have alerted funding recipients to this particular liability, the Court held those damages unavailable under either statute.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Barnes v. Gorman (536 U. S. 181)
Confirms Barnes as the controlling test for what remedies are available in Spending Clause anti-discrimination suits.
Reaffirms Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman (451 U. S. 1)
Reaffirms that Spending Clause statutes operate like contracts requiring clear notice of conditions and liabilities.