## Facts

- New Directions Treatment Services (NDTS) operated methadone treatment clinics in Pennsylvania and sought to open an additional facility in the City of Reading due to a waiting list at its nearby clinic.
- NDTS met with city officials and city council members in early 2001 regarding potential sites and signed a ten-year lease for property at 700 Lancaster Avenue.
- The proposed site was on a commercial corridor interspersed with private residences and had previously housed a counseling center treating mental health and substance-abuse patients, but not providing methadone treatment.
- A Pennsylvania statute imposed methadone-clinic-specific siting restrictions: a methadone facility could not be located within 500 feet of existing residential areas, schools, public parks, or places of religious worship unless the municipality’s governing body approved the location.
- Relying on the statute, the City of Reading exercised its discretionary approval power and voted against NDTS’s application, preventing the facility from opening.
- NDTS planned to serve roughly a couple hundred patients at the proposed location.
- NDTS and individual methadone patients sued the City and city council officials, asserting (among other theories) facial and as-applied claims under Title II of the ADA and § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.
- The district court granted summary judgment for the City on all claims; plaintiffs appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether a statute that expressly singles out methadone treatment facilities for special siting limits and discretionary municipal approval can violate Title II of the ADA and § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act on its face.
2. Whether the City’s permit denial under that statute can constitute disability discrimination against individuals receiving methadone maintenance treatment.
3. Whether summary judgment for the City was proper given disputes about discriminatory purpose/effect and the legitimacy or pretext of the City’s stated reasons.

## Decision

- The Third Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s judgment and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held that the ADA and Rehabilitation Act claims challenging the methadone-clinic-specific regime and the City’s denial raised triable issues and were not properly resolved by an across-the-board grant of summary judgment for the City.
- The court treated individuals receiving methadone maintenance for heroin addiction (and not excluded as current illegal drug users) as individuals with disabilities protected by the ADA and Rehabilitation Act.
- The court emphasized that the statute’s explicit singling out of methadone clinics, coupled with a local discretionary veto, could impose unequal burdens on access to treatment and could reflect or invite decisionmaking based on fear or stereotypes rather than neutral land-use criteria.

## Legal Principles

- Title II of the ADA and § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act prohibit public entities from using eligibility criteria or administrative mechanisms that subject qualified individuals with disabilities to discrimination or deny them equal opportunity to receive services.
- People in recovery from drug addiction who are not “current users of illegal drugs” may qualify as individuals with disabilities under the ADA and Rehabilitation Act.
- Land-use controls that expressly target facilities serving a protected class, or impose special approval burdens not placed on comparable facilities, may support claims of intentional discrimination or discriminatory effect under the ADA and Rehabilitation Act.
- Summary judgment is improper where material disputes remain regarding discriminatory purpose or effect, whether asserted governmental reasons are legitimate and non-discriminatory, and whether those reasons are pretext for differential treatment.

## Conclusion

The Third Circuit held that plaintiffs’ ADA and Rehabilitation Act challenges to a methadone-clinic-specific siting statute and the City’s discretionary denial of approval presented viable discrimination claims and could not be rejected wholesale on summary judgment, requiring further proceedings on unresolved factual and legal questions.


New Directions Treatment Servs. v. City of Reading, 490 F.3d 293 (3d Cir. 2007)