This article is provided as a courtesy service of the Great Lakes ADA News Service under a subcontract with the Disability News Services and funded by the U.S. Department of Education, NIDRR #133D60011.
A golfer's four-year battle to participate in PGA tournaments climaxed on January 17, when the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in PGA, Inc. v. Casey Martin (No. 00-24). Among other items, the court must decide whether Title III of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) covers rules of professional sports organizations like PGA, and whether disabled golfer Casey Martin can use a cart when he competes.
Anyone who pays an entry fee and submits two letters of recommendation, can participate in the PGA's qualifying school tournament, which consists of three stages. (About 1,200 golfers competed with Martin in stage one.) The 35 players with the best scores from stage three are eligible to play in the PGA Tour. The approximately 135 remaining golfers can still play in the PGA Tour by winning three tournaments in a season, or finishing as a top 15 money winner in the Buycom Tour (formerly the Nike Tour). Competitors may use golf carts in the first two stages, but must walk in stage three of the PGA and Buycom Tours. (Rules permit caddies to carry players' clubs.)
Martin, who successfully completed the first two stages, has Klippel-Trenaunay-Weber syndrome, which causes pain and possible injuries when he walks long distances. In 1997, he asked the PGA to waive the walking rule, and to use a cart to accommodate his disability in stage three. The PGA refused, and Martin filed suit. A district court granted a preliminary injunction allowing him to use a cart. To comply with the court order, PGA waived the walking rule for all golfers who participated in the third stage with Martin. His top 105 finish made him eligible to play in the Nike Tour.
Upon review, the district court:
- stated PGA rules were subject to Title III's reasonable modification rules;
- rejected the PGA's assertion that Martin's use of a cart fundamentally altered the competition;
- and permanently ordered the PGA to allow Martin to use a cart when he competed in either the PGA or Nike Tours.
PGA appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals where Martin prevailed.
In the Supreme Court, PGA attorney Bartow Farr III argued the appellate court erred in applying the ADA to "this type of claim by a professional athlete." He asserted Title III only applies to people seeking to enjoy a place of public accommodations' goods and services, not to employees or contractors.
"We are talking about something that's not just a place, we are talking about the Tour, the circuit, the season, whatever it's called," said Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. "That's what he wants to participate in." He further noted because the PGA Tour is open to golfers from all over the world, it is a public accommodation.
"By paying the entry fee and submitting two letters of recommendation, Casey Martin sought to avail himself of the PGA's 'services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations' in coordinating the golf competition, providing an opportunity to compete, and assembling an audience," stated the amicus brief filed by 32 disability organizations. "He therefore became a 'client or customer' of the Tour within the meaning of Title III." Farr then asserted PGA contestants are employees like professional football players. But Justice David H. Souter noted that unlike the PGA, professional football is not open to any member of the public.
"In fact, the PGA Tour explained in the district court when they were attempting to defeat the claim that this was an employee, that it doesn't hire golfers, that it's a membership association that arranges opportunities for its members and promotes their interests," argued Deputy Solicitor General Barbara D. Underwood.
According to Farr, the lower court failed to consider a professional sport as, "nothing more or less than a competition that tests excellence in performing what its rules require." He also argued that any attempt to adjust the rules to compensate for a player's physical condition "fundamentally alters the nature of that competition."
But Roy L. Reardon, Martin's attorney, argued walking is not fundamental to the rules of professional golf. Walking is not a condition of competition in the "Official Rules of Golf" used by both the United States Golf Association and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, Scotland. (A week earlier, for the second straight year, PGA permitted contestants in the second round of the PGA Tour in the Mercedes Championships at Kapalua, Hawaii, to ride between four different holes.)
Both lower courts rejected PGA's assertion that its walking rule injects a fatigue factor that is fundamental to the competition. With a cart, Martin still walks 25 percent of the course, which is painful, difficult and fatiguing. The district court concluded that even with the cart, he endures more fatigue than competitors without disabilities.
Several Supreme court justices noted in a similar case, Ford Olinger v. United States Golf Association (No. 99-2580), the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the walking rule was fundamental because it placed additional stress on players. According to Reardon, the outcome of that case differed because the court failed to address the nature and severity of Olinger's disability.
"He has never asked for any accommodation of any rule affecting where he hits the ball, how big the hole is or anything else," argued Reardon. "He plays every single rule of the game. The only thing is his disability, and the whole purpose of the Act is to get people like Casey Martin a chance to get to the game."
This work was performed under a subcontract with the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, and funded by the U.S. Department of Education, NIDRR #133D60011.