City attorneys this week filed a petition for reconsideration with the state Supreme Court, hoping to persuade the justices to reverse last month’s ruling that SEPTA isn’t bound by the city’s LGBT-inclusive antibias law.
SEPTA is the region’s mass-transit system, serving more than 650,000 riders daily in Philadelphia, four surrounding counties and parts of New Jersey and Delaware.
The city’s May 10 petition maintains it’s in the public interest for SEPTA to be governed by the city’s Fair Practices Ordinance. But SEPTA claims it’s a state agency and shouldn’t be governed by the ordinance.
The protracted litigation has ensued for almost 10 years.
In a 4-3 ruling last month, the high court sided with SEPTA, noting the transit agency has “sovereign immunity” from complaints such as those handled by the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations, which enforces the Fair Practices Ordinance.
But the city’s 16-page petition argues that the state legislature never intended for SEPTA to be immunized from all types of antibias complaints investigated by the PCHR.
The petition also argues that the type of complaints the PCHR would investigate with respect to SEPTA wouldn’t interfere with SEPTA’s core transportation mission.
Additionally, the petition emphasizes that the state legislature never said the state Human Relations Commission should have “exclusive” jurisdiction over SEPTA.
“[T]he lead opinion finds in the state’s Human Relations Act an intent to give the state Human Relations Commission exclusive jurisdiction over discrimination claims against SEPTA — without any citation to statutory language, legislative history, or legislative purpose. But the word ‘exclusive’ nowhere appears in the state Human Relations Act,” the petition states.
The city’s petition adds: “Without a doubt, the General Assembly, in granting sovereign immunity to SEPTA, wished to severely limit SEPTA’s litigation costs and exposure to liability. Further, it certainly is eminently possible that a General Assembly might wish to immunize SEPTA entirely from all litigation costs and from exposure to any liability. But to do so, the General Assembly would need to say something or do something to evince such an intent. Respectfully, the General Assembly did not say or do anything of the sort.”
In conclusion, the petition states: “[Last month’s] decision deprives hundreds of thousands of Philadelphia commuters, and thousands of SEPTA employees, of protections that the General Assembly authorized the city to provide.”
SEPTA has 14 days to reply to the city’s petition. As of presstime, a SEPTA spokesperson had no comment.
PCHR executive director Rue Landau issued this statement: “The PCHR is grateful that the city continues to fight to insure that our strong anti-discrimination law covers the thousands of SEPTA riders and employees, many of whom are members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, and have been left without protections.”
Justin F. Robinette, a local civil-rights attorney, expressed disappointment with the city’s petition.
“The petition barely mentions LGBT rights,” Robinette said. “There’s nothing in it about trans rights and just one reference to ‘sexual orientation’ toward the end. But perhaps that’s understandable, because the high court doesn’t appear very sympathetic to the cause. There’s virtually zero chance the petition will be granted. I don’t understand why the city minced its words. As a result, the city missed an important opportunity to unequivocally repudiate the court’s anti-LGBT ruling.”