Court gives 'legs' to hobbled golfer

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	Join a discussion on the Supreme Court decision allowing Casey Martin the right to ride his cart in PGA events

USA Today

WASHINGTON — All Casey Martin wanted was, as he put it, a chance to "to get in the game."

Casey Martin's golf-cart mobility will allow him to continue professional competition, but it's unclear how far the Supreme Court's ruling will extend to other sports situations. Associated Press library photo • Oct. 12, 2000

By a 7-2 vote, the court ruled that the cart request by Martin, who has a circulatory disorder in his right leg that makes walking painful, would not "fundamentally alter" the game of golf or give him any advantage over others on the course, as the PGA Tour had claimed.

"I feel relieved and grateful," said Martin, 28. "There is no guarantee golf will always be in my future, but I can always look back and know I prevailed in this."

Meanwhile, sports organizations across the nation — from youth groups to elite amateur leagues — rushed to examine how their rules might be bent to better accommodate disabled players, and braced for what could be a wave of lawsuits. The groups, as well as advocates for the disabled, say the ruling establishes a significant guideline for disabled players to use in trying to push leagues to change rules to allow them to compete.

Local soccer teams and swim clubs, for example, now likely will have to "find a solution for each individual (disability) case that is presented," said Melissa Cole, an assistant professor at St. Louis University and an expert on disability law.

Ruling breaks ground

The Americans With Disabilities Act, passed by Congress in 1990 to open doors and new opportunities to millions nationwide, prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in jobs, housing and "places of public accommodation."

Yesterday's case involved the part of the law that deals with public places and requires a business to make reasonable modifications for people with disabilities unless it shows that the change would "fundamentally alter the nature" of the activity in question.

The Martin ruling broke ground in two ways: Broadly interpreting the "public accommodations" section, the court rejected the PGA Tour's stance that competitors on a golf course are not covered by the law, ruling that participants in an event, like the spectators, are protected from discrimination.

The court also said that when someone claims a policy is discriminatory and wants some "modification," judges must scrutinize that individual's particular situation to determine whether a change would fundamentally alter the tournament or activity.

Using that guide, the court rejected the PGA Tour's argument that walking is essential to golf tournaments, and that giving Martin a cart would change the game.

While his case was being debated in court, Casey Martin was able to use a cart during the Kemper Open Pro-Am last year. Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled in his favor. Associated Press library photo • May 29, 2000

Dissenting Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, as well as critics outside the court, were quick to declare that the ruling could doom sports on all levels.

"One can envision," Scalia wrote, "the parents of a Little League player with attention deficit disorder trying to convince a judge that their son's disability makes it at least 25 percent more difficult to hit a pitched ball." Scalia suggested they might claim that the kid deserves to get four strikes during each at-bat, rather than three.

But Stevens, an avid golfer with a hole-in-one to his credit, dismissed the notion that the ruling would lead to ridiculous sports scenarios or transform a game beyond recognition. He said that a judge probably couldn't, for example, order the diameter of a golf hole expanded or allow one player an advantage that truly changes the nature of competition.

Stevens also emphasized the seriousness of Martin's disorder, which has caused his lower right leg to atrophy to half the girth of his left leg. He said Martin's situation differs from players with less serious afflictions that might make walking the course uncomfortable or difficult but not beyond their capacity.

Stevens referred to Martin as a "gifted athlete" and "talented golfer," and said that Congress, in enacting the ADA in 1990, focused on people who traditionally had been excluded from a range of benefits in society because of their disabilities.

PGA response restrained

PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem said yesterday that Martin would continue to be given a cart for use in tournaments on the Buy.com and PGA tours, but held off on predicting other consequences of the ruling.

Martin now competes mostly on the Buy.com Tour — which essentially is a minor-league circuit for pro golfers — after narrowly missing out on qualifying for this year's PGA Tour. After winning his case in lower courts, Martin had been allowed to use a cart in tournaments until the Supreme Court resolved his 4-year-old lawsuit against the PGA.

Finchem said the PGA Tour's policy board would review the court's ruling to determine how the ADA's requirements might affect the tour's regulations and rules.

The Martin ruling sent legal analysts scrambling yesterday to try to figure out whether it could suddenly transform a multitude of sports competitions:

Could a diabetic tennis player be entitled to extra rest every time she changes sides without fundamentally altering the game, as described in the Martin ruling? Would that standard give a blind long-distance runner the right to be tethered to another person who would guide the blind runner around a race course-and potentially serve as a valuable pace-setter?

The hypothetical scenarios were numerous, and perhaps the only clear consequence of the Martin ruling is the parade of lawsuits it likely will inspire.

Ruling pointedly narrowed

Legal analysts on both sides of the case noted that Stevens took pains to try to narrow the ruling, emphasizing that judges should not allow a sport to be fundamentally changed. He minimized the nature of walking in golf: "From early on," he said, "the essence of the game has been shot-making using clubs to cause a ball to progress from the teeing ground to a hole some distance away with as few strokes as possible."

Georgetown University law professor Chai Feldblum, who helped draft the 1990 ADA, said that "individual situations will be decided in individual courts across the country.

"Any sports organization that has a rule that cuts out a person with a disability now has to be ready to justify that rule. And the person with the disability has to prove that it is necessary to have the modification and that it gives them no advantage over the competitors."

Feldblum played down the potential impact on pro sports and emphasized a larger issue: the ruling's requirement that judges examine the particulars when an individual seeks a "reasonable modification" at a public place.

"It is an incredibly important victory for people with disabilities because it underscores the importance of having individualized assessments," he said. "The point of the ADA was to have businesses stop, think and justify the rules that exclude others."