Stanley v. City of Sanford, Florida

The Americans with Disabilities Act does not protect former employees who neither hold nor desire a job at the time of an employer's alleged act of discrimination. Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the majority opinion of the Court. Title I of the ADA makes it unlawful for employers to discriminate against a “qualified individual” based on disability regarding compensation and other employment matters. The statute defines a “qualified individual” as someone who "can perform the essential functions of the employment position that such individual holds or desires.” The present-tense verbs—“holds,” “desires,” and “can perform”—signal that the law protects individuals able to perform a job they currently hold or seek when discrimination occurs, not retirees who neither hold nor desire employment. The statute’s definition of “reasonable accommodation,” which includes job restructuring and modifying facilities for employees, reinforces this interpretation by referencing accommodations that make sense only for current employees or job applicants, not retirees. The ADA’s structure further supports this reading through its examples of discrimination in Section 12112(b), such as “qualification standards” and “employment tests,” which clearly aim to protect job holders and seekers rather than retirees. Additionally, comparing Title I with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act reveals that while Title VII protects “employees” without temporal qualification, the ADA’s use of “qualified individual” linked to present-tense verbs indicates protection for current job holders or seekers only. The Court’s precedent in Cleveland v. Policy Management Systems Corporation anticipated that someone may fall outside the ADA’s protections if she can no longer perform the job. Justice Clarence Thomas authored an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, joined by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, expressing concern about litigants changing their arguments after the Court grants certiorari. Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, arguing that Title I’s prohibition on disability discrimination should not cease when an employee retires. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson authored a dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Sotomayor in parts, arguing that the majority misreads Title I by viewing it through “the distorted lens of pure textualism,” incorrectly using the qualified individual definition as a temporal limit it was never designed to be, and thereby rendering meaningless the ADA’s protections for disabled workers’ retirement benefits just when those protections matter most.