Bronner Says No to Golf Carts for the Disabled - Is State Immune to Suit?

The CEO of the Retirement Systems of Alabama, David Bronner, isn't budging from his position that Alabama's Robert Trent Jones golf courses will not provide special carts for disabled golfers.

Jerry Pope, a paraplegic golfer from Tuscaloosa, filed a civil rights complaint with the Justice Department in November claiming that he is the victim of discrimination by the RSA under the ADA law passed in 1990.

He claims that RSA's golf courses violate ADA laws because they don't provide carts that are specially made for paraplegics...

Bronner believes RSA is doing the right thing. He said disabled golfers are welcomed at all of the RSA's 28 courses at nine locations around the state. They may bring their own hand-operated single-rider carts, but if they want to use the special carts, Bronner requires them to sign a release of reliability.

"If they're going to try it at the top of the hill, we need somebody at the bottom to pick them up," he said.

Bronner insists there are only two RSA courses that are flat enough to safely accommodate the single-rider carts -- the Grand Hotel in Fairhope and the Highland Oaks at Dothan. He says the rest of the courses are far too hilly for the carts to negotiate safely.

Bronner has said that he's willing to make a deal, but Pope isn't backing away from his ADA complaint and continues to seek Justice Department authorization for a lawsuit.

I hope the lawyers out there will pardon my ignorance if this is a dumb question, but as an agency of the state, is the Retirement Systems of Alabama immune to federal lawsuits under the doctrine of sovereign immunity as embodied in the 11th Amendment? Does Congress's power to abrogate sovereign immunity under the 14th Amendment extend to access to golf courses and other athletic facilities? Assuming that this complaint makes it into federal court, what are the similarities to University of Alabama v. Garrett and Tennessee v. Lane ? The Court upheld the state's sovereign immunity in the Alabama case, but ruled against it in the Tennessee case.

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