## Facts

- Edward Leo Pottgen, a Missouri high school student with documented learning disabilities, repeated two grades in elementary school before receiving special education services and then progressed at a typical pace.
- Pottgen played high school baseball for three years and sought to play during his senior year.
- The Missouri State High School Activities Association (MSHSAA) enforced an age-eligibility bylaw providing that a student is ineligible if he “reached the age of nineteen prior to July 1 preceding the opening of school.”
- Pottgen turned 19 shortly before July 1 preceding his senior year; MSHSAA declared him ineligible for interscholastic baseball.
- Pottgen sued under § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, Title II of the ADA, and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging the age rule unlawfully excluded him because his age status resulted from disability-related grade retention.
- The district court issued a temporary restraining order and then a preliminary injunction preventing MSHSAA from enforcing the age rule against Pottgen and from penalizing any school that allowed him to play.
- MSHSAA appealed only the grant of preliminary injunctive relief.

## Issues

1. Whether Pottgen was a “qualified individual with a disability” under Title II of the ADA and § 504 in the context of interscholastic athletics despite failing a facially neutral age-eligibility rule.
2. Whether requiring MSHSAA to waive or modify the age-eligibility rule would be an unreasonable accommodation because it would fundamentally alter the athletics program or create unfair competitive advantage.
3. Whether the district court properly found a likelihood of success on the merits sufficient to justify a preliminary injunction.

## Decision

- The Eighth Circuit reversed the preliminary injunction and directed that it be vacated.
- The court held Pottgen was not a “qualified” individual for purposes of participating in MSHSAA-governed athletics because he could not satisfy an essential eligibility requirement (the age limit) and the requested waiver was not a reasonable modification.
- The court concluded that exempting Pottgen from the age rule would fundamentally alter the nature of the interscholastic athletics eligibility scheme and risk unfair competitive advantage.
- Because Pottgen was unlikely to succeed on the merits, preliminary injunctive relief was improper.

## Legal Principles

- Under Title II and § 504, a plaintiff must be “qualified,” meaning able to meet a program’s essential eligibility requirements with or without reasonable modification.
- Reasonable modification does not require an entity to fundamentally alter the nature of a service, program, or activity or to substantially change essential standards.
- Uniformly applied, facially neutral eligibility criteria may be treated as essential where they serve core program objectives such as safety and competitive equity.
- At the preliminary injunction stage, failure to show a substantial likelihood of success on the merits warrants denial or vacatur of injunctive relief.

## Conclusion

The Eighth Circuit held that disability statutes did not require a high school athletics association to waive an essential, uniformly applied age-eligibility rule, and it vacated the preliminary injunction because the requested exemption would fundamentally alter the program and Pottgen was unlikely to prevail on the merits.


Pottgen v. Mo. State High Sch. Activities Ass’n, 40 F.3d 926 (8th Cir. 1994)