The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that a disabled former employee has no standing under the Americans with Disabilities Act to challenge an employer that denied coverage of health benefits. 

The court ruled in Stanley v. City of Sanford, Florida that a disabled former employee, a firefighter, was no longer “qualified individual” under the ADA “and, thus, cannot sue for disability discrimination following her employer’s revocation of retiree health benefits,” according to Hunton attorney Ryan M. Bates.

Karyn Stanley retired in 2018 at the age of 47 due to Parkinson’s disease. Under the retirement policy when she started her job, Sanford would have covered about three-fourths of her monthly healthcare premium until she reached age 65 or enrolled in Medicare. That policy changed in 2003, however, to only cover firefighters who retire after 25 years of service until they reach the age of 65. Now, firefighters who retire early because of disability only receive the subsidy for two years or until they become eligible for Medicare. That change directly affected Stanley’s healthcare coverage. 

In court, Stanley asserted that the city’s policy discriminates against her based on her disability. Therefore, she said, the policy violates the ADA. Federal courts dismissed her claim because she was retired and no longer capable of working.

The Supreme Court  decision “significantly narrows the scope of the protections under Title 1 of the Americans with Disabilities Act,” Stark & Stark attorney Scott Unger wrote Tuesday. 

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the 7-2 majority opinion that a “quali­fied individual” under the ADA is someone who “could perform [the job’s] essential functions with or without reasonable accommodation, at the time of an employer’s alleged act of disability-based discrimination.”

Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.

“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,” Jackson wrote. “Under the majority’s logic, if an employer cuts off an employee’s entitlement to retiree health benefits (because of their disability) one day before they retire, the employee can sue. But if the employer waits until one day after that employee’s retirement (assuming the employee no longer desires the job they held), Title I offers them no protection.”