HS&S Secures Key Victory for Center for Transitional Living in Discrimination Case

A federal court has denied two motions to dismiss claims brought by HS&S and Center for Transitional Living LLC (CTL) against Advanced Behavioral Health, Inc. (ABH), the State of Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS), and the DMHAS Commissioner in her official capacity, Nancy Navaretta. This denial allows CTL’s civil rights and Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act (CUTPA) claims to proceed.

CTL is a minority-owned Connecticut company providing home healthcare services to individuals with serious mental illnesses enrolled in the State’s Medicaid Mental Health Waiver/Money Follows the Person (W.I.S.E.) program. CTL alleges that ABH and DMHAS engaged in discriminatory referral practices by failing or refusing to refer clients to CTL because of its employees’ race and/or ethnicity, either on their own initiative or in compliance with discriminatory client requests. ABH, a private company contracted by the State to help administer the program, and DMHAS routinely passed along discriminatory requests from Medicaid recipients, such as requesting only “Caucasian staff” or having “no accent,” without any clinical justification. CTL raised concerns about this practice, stating that it could provide staff for the referrals but refusing to capitulate to the discriminatory requests.  ABH and DMHAS then retaliated against CTL for complaining about the discriminatory referral policy, failing or refusing to refer other clients to CTL because of its stated objection and unwillingness to participate in the discriminatory referral process.

The court’s ruling on September 29^th was significant, rejecting ABH’s argument that CTL’s amended complaint failed to adequately allege that ABH’s conduct constituted state action, a necessary requirement to hold a private entity responsible for the actions of the state under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The court found that CTL had sufficiently alleged a connection between the state and ABH’s practices. This included allegations that DMHAS policy required clinicians employed by both ABH and DMHAS to discuss client “preferences” for aides, essentially inviting participants to make discriminatory requests, and that clinicians followed that requirement and accepted such requests. The court also found that CTL had adequately alleged that State officials knew about the practices and allowed them to continue.

The court also rejected the State defendants’ argument that CTL’s claim for injunctive relief was moot because the challenged conduct had ceased. The ruling noted that the evidence did not establish clearly enough that the challenged practices had ended. The court pointed to evidence suggesting that although the State claimed it had changed its policy concerning discriminatory requests, clinicians still heard and repeated discriminatory referrals and  CTL continued to allege that discriminatory referrals or nonreferrals persisted.

The ruling allows CTL to continue pursuing its claims that it was penalized for refusing to participate in discriminatory referral practices. The court denied the defendants’ motions in their entirety and ordered the parties to submit a proposed schedule for the remainder of the action.  The court also referred the case for a settlement conference.  After many years of awaiting this decision, HS&S attorneys David Slossberg and Erica Nolan are especially pleased to see this case move forward – a meaningful victory for a remarkable client who has remained steadfast in pursuing a simple but important goal: putting an end to a discriminatory practice.