Andrew H.K. Wong v. Regents of the University of California

379 F.3d 1097 Andrew H.K. WONG, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. REGENTS OF the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Defendant-Appellee. No. 01-17432. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submission Deferred February 12, 2003. Submitted April 17, 2003. Filed August 18, 2004. Dan Siegel (argued), Hunter Pyle, Siegle & Yee, Oakland, CA, for the plaintiff-appellant. Michael T. Lucey, Michael D. Bruno, Joel K. Liberson (argued), Gordon & Rees LLP, San Francisco, CA, for the defendant-appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California; Lawrence K. Karlton, Senior District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-96-00965-LKK(DAD). Before: BEEZER, THOMAS and CLIFTON, Circuit Judges. CLIFTON, Circuit Judge: 1 Andrew H.K. Wong alleges that the University of California discriminated against him in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA") and the Rehabilitation Act 1 when it denied his request for learning disability accommodations and subsequently dismissed him for failure to meet the academic requirements of the medical school at the University's Davis campus. The district court granted the University's motion for summary judgment,…

Andrew H.K. Wong alleges that the University of California discriminated against him in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and the Rehabilitation Act 1 when it denied his request for learning disability accommodations and subsequently dismissed him for failure to meet the academic requirements of the medical school at the University’s Davis campus. The district court granted the University’s motion for summary judgment, concluding that Wong failed to present a triable issue of material fact as to whether he was “disabled” and thus legally entitled to special accommodations under those Acts.

Wong’s appeal thus requires us to consider the meaning of “disabled” under the Acts. More specifically, it presents a question of whether a person who has achieved considerable academic success, beyond the attainment of most people or of the average person, can nonetheless be found to be “substantially limited” in reading and *1099 learning, and thus be entitled to claim the protections afforded under the Acts to a “disabled” person.

This appeal also raises an issue regarding the exclusion of testimony by the district court on the ground that the expert witnesses in…

dissenting:

One of the central purposes of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act is to provide equal opportunity for those individuals who are qualified to receive government services but cannot complete the program requirements without a reasonable accommodation of their disability. Unfortunately, the majority opinion turns this idea on its head by holding that, as a matter of law, academic success definitively disproves the existence of a learning disability. This interpretation places individuals with disabilities in a classic Catch-22 situation. In order to receive an accommodation, the disabled person must show that he or she can satisfy the program’s minimum eligibility requirements. However, under the majority theory, if the student meets those prerequisites, then the student cannot receive an accommodation because establishing qualification proves the student isn’t disabled. At a minimum, this interpretation precludes all students who, despite learning disabilities, have nonetheless achieved “academic success,” from receiving ADA mandated accommodations. Not only does this interpretation evert the ADA’s underlying theory, but it is antithetical to ADA’s…