A former nurse at the University of Alabama at Birmingham can sue the public institution under a federal disabilities law known as the Rehabilitation Act, a federal appeals court ruled last week, even though the U.S. Supreme Court previously prevented her from suing the state university under the Americans With Disabilities Act.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit said in its decision that public colleges and other state agencies can be held liable for violating the Rehabilitation Act because they receive federal funds. The 1973 law prevents recipients of such aid from discriminating on the basis of disability.

The decision reverses a lower-court ruling in the case, which consolidated lawsuits filed by Patricia Garrett, the former university nurse, with those of a former employee of the Alabama Department of Youth Services and a former employee of the Alabama Department of Corrections. The appeals court sent the case back to the U.S. District Court for further proceedings.

Ms. Garrett accused her supervisors at the university of discriminating against her after she received a diagnosis of breast cancer by making negative comments about her illness and demoting her when she took medical leave. In 1997, she filed complaints against the institution, charging that its officials had violated the Rehabilitation Act, the disabilities act, and other federal laws.

The university and the other state agencies argued that they were immune from the disabilities lawsuits. They cited the U.S. Constitution's 11th Amendment, which grants states broad protection against being sued in federal court. Lawyers for the plaintiffs countered that the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection should trump states' claims to immunity.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case involving the disabilities claims made by Ms. Garrett and the other former state employees. But the justices did not take up the issue of whether states are immune from charges filed under the Rehabilitation Act.

In February 2001, the Supreme Court ruled, in a 5-to-4 decision, that public colleges and other state entities are immune from lawsuits brought under Title I of the Americans With Disabilities Act, which governs employment. The justices determined that the U.S. Congress, in enacting the ADA, had exceeded its authority by letting individuals sue state entities for damages without there being a pattern of discrimination by the states.

In its decision last week, the federal appeals court concluded that state entities that receive federal funds have a specific obligation to comply with the Rehabilitation Act, and certain other federal laws, that they do not have under the ADA. In their decision, the judges cited a U.S. law that specifically prevents state entities that receive federal funds from claiming immunity under the 11th Amendment in cases that involve Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, as well as Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Lawrence Lorber, a labor and employment lawyer at Proskauer Rose, a law firm in Washington, D.C., said that a basic difference between the provisions of the Rehabilitation Act and the ADA allows for different rulings on whether public colleges are liable under the two laws.

The Rehabilitation Act applies only to recipients of federal funds, so following its provisions can be considered a mandatory condition tied to the receipt of money from the federal government, he said. The ADA, by contrast, applies broadly to everyone in the United States, so it carries no specific obligations for states and other entities that get federal funds.

Officials at the University of Alabama at Birmingham declined to comment on last week's ruling. Neither Ms. Garrett nor her lawyers could be reached.