SCOTUS limits ADA claims for disabled retirees

A Florida firefighter forced to retire due to disability was not a “qualified individual” entitled to pursue a discrimination claim under Americans with Disabilities Act based on her employer’s reservation of extended health insurance coverage to those retirees who achieved 25 year of service, a divided U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in affirming a decision from the 11th Circuit.

In reaching its decision, the court held that, to prevail on a claim for under 42 U.S.C. §12112(a), a plaintiff must plead and prove that she held or desired a job, and could perform its essential functions with or without reasonable accommodation, at the time of an employer’s alleged act of disability-based discrimination.

Section §12112(a) prohibits a covered employer from discriminating against a qualified individual on the basis of disability in regard to compensation.

The plaintiff in the case, Karyn Stanley, became a firefighter for the city of Sanford starting in 1999. At the time of her hiring, the city offered health insurance until age 65 to those firefighters with 25 years of service and those who retired earlier due to disability. In 2003, the city changed its policy to provide health insurance up to age 65 only for retirees with 25 years of service. Those who retired earlier due to disability received 24 months of coverage.

In her lawsuit against the city, the plaintiff argued the defendant violated the ADA by providing different health insurance benefits to those who retired with 25 years of service and those who retired due to disability.

Disabilities forced the plaintiff to retire in 2018.

The court took up the case to resolve a circuit split on the question of whether §12112(a) reaches discrimination against retirees who neither hold nor desire a job whose essential tasks they can perform with reasonable accommodation.

Click here to read the full text of the June 20 decision in Stanley v. Sanford.

BULLET POINTS: “‘[T]o ascertain a statute’s temporal reach,’ this Court has ‘frequently looked to Congress’ choice of verb tense.’ And here, Congress has made it unlawful to ‘discriminate against’ someone who ‘can perform the essential functions of’ the job she ‘holds or desires.’ Those present-tense verbs signal that §12112(a) protects individuals who, with or without reasonable accommodation, are able to do the job they hold or seek at the time they suffer discrimination. Conversely, those verbs tend to suggest that the statute does not reach retirees who neither hold nor desire a job at the time of an alleged act of discrimination.”

— Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, opinion of the court with respect to Parts I and II of the Court’s opinion

“I join Parts I and II of the Court’s opinion. I write separately to express my concern with the increasingly common practice of litigants urging this Court to grant certiorari to resolve one question, and then, after we do so, pivoting to an entirely different question. This case exemplifies the problem. We granted review to resolve a Circuit split regarding whether the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) permits suits by former employees who are no longer able to perform the essential functions of their jobs at the time of the alleged discrimination. For the first time at the merits stage, petitioner Karyn Stanley urged us to decide a different question: whether Stanley could sue based on discrimination that occurred while she was still employed and able to work. But, that theory of liability was not passed upon below because the Eleventh Circuit determined that Stanley had disavowed it, and Stanley did not seek review of the Eleventh Circuit’s issue-preservation ruling. We ordinarily respect a lower court’s application of its own preservation rules. I therefore would not opine on the additional question that Stanley raised for the first time in earnest at the merits stage.”

— Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, concurring in part and concurring in judgment

“I join Parts III and IV … of the dissent because, in my view, Title I’s prohibition on disability discrimination does not cease the day an employee retires. As JUSTICE JACKSON explains, when an employer makes a discriminatory change in postemployment benefits that a retiree earned while qualified and employed, the employer discriminates against the person in her capacity as a qualified individual. Because the Court eschews that common-sense understanding of the statutory text, I also respectfully dissent in part. Notwithstanding the Court’s error on that question, at least five Justices (four in the plurality and JUSTICE JACKSON in dissent) agree that plaintiffs in Lt. Stanley’s shoes can plead disability discrimination if they were ‘subject to a discriminatory compensation decision or other practice’ while a qualified individual within the majority’s understanding of that term.’ That remains true even if the employee does not file her lawsuit until after she retires, as long as she was subject to a discriminatory policy while both disabled and a qualified individual.”

— Justice Sonia Sotomayor, concurring in part and dissenting in part

“As I understand today’s holding, the Court has decided that if a worker who has earned retirement benefits leaves the workforce (as expected) and is then discriminated against with respect to the provision of those earned benefits because she is disabled, Title I offers no protection. To get to this counterintuitive conclusion, the Court relies on Title I’s ‘qualified individual’ definition — a provision designed to protect employers from having to employ those who cannot do the work, not to cut off the rights of those who already finished it. Making matters worse, the Court has to extend itself to reach this stingy outcome, because the case before us does not present a scenario involving discrimination that took place only postemployment.

“In short, the Court overlooks both the actual facts presented in this case and the clear design of the ADA to render a ruling that plainly counteracts what Congress meant to—and did—accomplish.”

— Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, with whom Justice Sonia Sotomayor joins as to Parts III and IV, dissenting