Retirees experiencing changes in post-employment benefits due to disability may not be able claim disability discrimination, following a recent fractured U.S. Supreme Court decision.
On Friday, June 20, 2025, the Supreme Court resolved a circuit split: whether a person who no longer holds or seeks a job with their former employer can sue that employer for alleged post-employment discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"). A majority of the Justices answered that question with "no."
The case, entitled Stanley v. City of Sanford, Florida, was filed by a former Sanford firefighter. When Stanley first began her employment in 1999, the City of Sanford provided post-employment health insurance until age 65 to retirees who either retired after 25 years of service or retired due to disability. In 2003, however, and unbeknownst to Stanley, the City changed that policy to provide retirees who retired due to disability with post-employment health insurance for up to 24 months. Ms. Stanley retired due to disability in 2016 and later brought suit, claiming that amending the policy constituted disability discrimination. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine "whether Section 12112(a) [of the ADA] reaches discrimination against retirees who neither hold nor desire a job whose essential tasks they can perform with reasonable accommodation."
A majority of the Supreme Court concluded it did not. In so ruling, the Court affirmed the lower courts' ruling dismissing Stanley's ADA discrimination claim because at the time she experienced the alleged discrimination, Ms. Stanley was no longer a "qualified individual" under the ADA. An individual is "qualified" if they can perform the essential functions of the job they hold or desire, with or without a reasonable accommodation. Stanley's problem was that she did not hold her firefighter job any longer, and, as a retiree, she did not plan to return to work. The Court noted that Congress intended this result in enacting the ADA, as the statute uses "qualified individual" for discrimination claims, while any "person" can bring an ADA retaliation claim. Further, the Court noted that the ADA's examples of reasonable accommodations—which are available only to qualified individuals—support this conclusion, as they only make sense if applied to employees or job applicants—not those who no longer hold or desire that job. The Court made clear that an ADA discrimination plaintiff "must plead and prove that [they] held or sought a job when the defendant discriminated against [them] on the basis of disability."
In a rare twist, after concluding Stanley's ADA claim was rightly dismissed, the Court took up an "additional question" beyond the certified question: whether Stanley could pursue a claim because the alleged discriminatory policy change occurred while she was still employed and able to work. The Court said Stanley could not, largely because she disavowed this argument previously. However, the Court said that other retirees may be able to advance a claim if they plead and prove they were disabled, qualified, and employed/seeking a job when their employer adopted a discriminatory retirement-benefits policy.
Justice Thomas concurred with the majority but wrote that litigants such as Stanley should not be able to present a new question to the Supreme Court after the Court decided to hear the case based on a different question presented.
Justice Jackson dissented. She explained that the majority turned the "qualified individual" definition into a time limitation that stops after a person retires, even though the ADA is silent as to the timing of the alleged discrimination. She wrote that Stanley earned her retirement benefits when she was employed and "qualified" such that she should now be able to sue under the ADA. Otherwise, employers need only wait for an employee to retire before terminating their retirement benefits based on disability—a result that the ADA was clearly not enacted to allow. Justice Sotomayor joined the reasoning in Justice Jackson's dissent, but concurred in the judgment because Stanley, at the Court of Appeals, disavowed her theory that the discrimination happened while she was employed.
After Stanley, retirees may be able to sue for discrimination under the ADA—however, it can only be for discriminatory practices that occurred while they (1) were disabled; (2) were employed or seeking a job; and (3) could perform all the essential functions of the job with or without a reasonable accommodation.
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