United States: Supreme Court Holds Receipt Of Social Security Disability Benefits Not A Bar To ADA Claim

When an employee goes before the Social Security Administration (SSA) in an attempt to obtain Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits, she must demonstrate that she has a disability so severe that she is unable to do her previous work and cannot engage in any other kind of substantial gainful work which exists in the national economy.

When an employee brings suit under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) for discrimination on the basis of a disability, she must, as a threshold matter, demonstrate that she is a "qualified individual with a disability." In order to do so, she must prove, among other things, that she can perform the essential functions of her job with or without reasonable accommodation.

Ironically, one of the main defenses utilized by employers in ADA disputes is the argument that the employee is too disabled to fall within the protection of the ADA. That is, no matter what affirmative steps are taken by the employer, the employee simply cannot do the job. A common illustration is that a transportation company is neither required to hire nor accommodate a blind truck driver.

What happens when, in January, an employee submits to the SSA that she is totally disabled, but in July, sues for discrimination under the ADA, thus claiming that she can perform the essential functions of the job? It would seem as though the two positions are mutually exclusive. It seems impossible that the same employee can claim in one forum that she is totally disabled, while in another forum claim that she can still perform the essential functions of her job. As one Court of Appeals judge stated, allowing the ADA claim to go forward would be like allowing the employee to "blow hot and cold as the occasion demands."

The issue of whether an employee who has applied for or received SSDI benefits should be judicially estopped from bringing suit under the ADA has created a split within the Courts of Appeals for some time. However, the United States Supreme Court recently answered the question in the negative, i.e., the employee is not judicially estopped from bringing suit under the ADA.

In Cleveland v. Policy Management Systems Corp., No. 97-1008, a unanimous decision, Justice Breyer announced that even when an employee has not only applied for, but has in fact received SSDI benefits, she will not be estopped from subsequently bringing suit under the ADA. Furthermore, the courts should not "erect a strong presumption against the employee’s success under" the Act. The decision stands in stark contrast to the Court’s earlier denial of certiorari of a Fourth Circuit decision which had held that an employee was judicially estopped from bringing suit under the West Virginia Human Rights Act where she had already received SSDI benefits.

In Cleveland, the employee, Carolyn Cleveland, was fired by her employer six months after suffering a stroke because her concentration, memory, and language skills had been damaged. She applied for and received SSDI benefits as a result of her assertion to the SSA that she was unable to work due to her disability. One week before receiving her SSDI award, Cleveland brought suit under the ADA alleging that her employer had terminated her employment without reasonably accommodating her disability. The District Court granted the employer summary judgment because Cleveland’s claim to the SSA that she was totally disabled estopped her from proving a necessary element of her ADA claim, namely that she could perform the essential functions of her job. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed, holding that the application for or the receipt of SSDI benefits creates a rebuttable presumption that a recipient is estopped from pursuing an ADA claim.

The Supreme Court proffered two main reasons why an employee should be able to bring suit for discrimination under the ADA even after receiving SSDI benefits. First, what is considered a "total disability" is analytically different under the Social Security laws than it is under the ADA. Under the ADA, an employee is considered a "qualified individual with a disability" if she can perform the essential functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodation. For purposes of SSDI benefits, the determination of a "total disability" is made without regard to any reasonable accommodation. Therefore, an employee could be unable to do her previous work or any other kind of work in the national economy if given no reasonable accommodation at all, but could be able to perform the essential functions of her job if given reasonable accommodation. Second, the nature of an employee’s disability can change over time. For example, an employee could have a disability which rendered her "totally disabled" for purposes of SSDI, but could become less serious over time, enabling her to perform the essential functions of her job at a later date.

Although the decision lowers the bar for an employee caught in the SSDI/ADA contradiction, it does not completely remove it. The Court stressed that the employee retains the ultimate burden of persuading the fact-finder that she is a "qualified individual with a disability." The Court went on to state that an employee who has applied for SSDI benefits cannot simply ignore the apparent discrepancy that arises, but must proffer a sufficient explanation which requires more than a mere contradiction of her earlier statement to the SSA.