The Supreme Court has barred a retired firefighter from continuing a lawsuit against her former employer under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In a June 20 ruling, the justices held 8-1 that the retiree, Karyn Stanley, lacked standing to sue over the employer’s decision to discontinue a post-employment healthcare benefits program.
Why the plaintiff sued over retiree benefits. Stanley started working as a firefighter for the city of Sanford, Florida in 1999. By the time she retired in 2018 at age 47 due to complications from Parkinson’s disease, a program that would’ve covered most of her health insurance premiums until she was 65 years old had been cut back by the city.
The post-employment benefit in question previously extended to workers who spent 25 years with the department, as well as employees like Stanley, who had to retire early due to a disability. In 2003 the city narrowed the policy to only cover workers with 25 years of service. That left early retirees like Stanley limited to receive the benefit for two years, or until they become eligible for Medicare.
Stanley—who wasn’t yet disabled when the 2003 change took effect—sued the city in 2020, alleging it violated the ADA by offering firefighters with 25 years of service different health insurance benefits from those who retire as a result of a disability.
But two lower courts dismissed Stanley’s case, finding she wasn’t considered a “qualified individual” under the ADA, since she had already retired and was no longer employed by the fire department when the alleged discrimination occurred. The Supreme Court affirmed this ruling.
In order to bring a Title I lawsuit under the ADA, “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,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in an opinion for a majority of the court.
What this means for employers. It’s generally understood that in order to be covered by the ADA, you have to be a “qualified individual”; i.e. someone who is able “to do the job that either they’re in or that they’re applying for, either with or without reasonable accommodation,” said employment attorney James Paul, co-chair of the Disability Access practice group for Ogletree Deakins and a shareholder with its St. Louis office. “Someone who’s retired is not going to fit that definition or even that concept.”
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The Supreme Court similarly failed to see how Stanley would meet the criteria of “qualified individual.” Provisions of the ADA that prohibit workplace discrimination “focus on current and prospective employees—not retirees,” Justice Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion. He also noted that it was up to Congress to change the law if it wished.
This ruling doesn’t change much for employers when it comes to ADA compliance, Paul said. Benefits programs are still subject to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and thus can’t discriminate against individuals based on protected characteristics including race, religion, or sex.
In light of that, “we still need to be careful with how we create, modify, or adjust coverage and the terms of those plans,” Paul said. The decision “just means that a retired employee is not going to have an ADA claim” over a potentially discriminatory benefits decision, he added.
Justice Gorsuch did note that other employees “who happen to be retired at the time they sue” might be able to bring a claim like Stanley’s, “if they can plead and prove they were both disabled and ‘qualified’ when their employer adopted a discriminatory retirement-benefits policy.”
Legal experts told other media outlets that they expected the ruling to give employers some leeway when making changes to retiree benefits.
“Employers all the time are very hesitant to make changes to retiree benefits because there are a bunch of different legal landmines you could step on when you do that type of thing,” Caroline Pieper, an employee benefits attorney with Seyfarth Shaw LLP, told Bloomberg Law. “This case will help give employers a little bit of comfort, at least under the ADA, from a litigation risk standpoint.”