Employee's Receipt of Social Security Disability Benefits Does Not Foreclose ADA Suit Against Employer
In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court declared that an employee's claim for social security disability benefits did not conflict with, or foreclose, a claim against the employer under the Americans With Disabilities Act ("ADA"). (Cleveland v. Policy Management Systems Corp., No. 97-1008).
The plaintiff suffered a stroke and lost her job. Thereafter she filed a social security disability claim (which provides benefits to a person with a total disability, i.e., one so severe that she is unable to do her previous work or any similar work) and an ADA lawsuit (which prohibits covered employers from discriminating against a disabled person who can perform the essential functions of her job, including those who can do so only with reasonable accommodations by the employer). The lower courts granted summary judgment for the employer, finding that pursuit of social security disability creates a rebutable presumption that a recipient is precluded from pursuing an ADA claim against the recipient's employer and that the plaintiff failed to rebut that presumption.
In reversing, the Supreme Court noted there are too many situations when a social security disability claim and an ADA claim "may comfortably exist side-by-side." For example, an ADA plaintiff's claim that she can perform her job, though disabled, with reasonable accommodations by the employer may well prove consistent with her social security disability claim that she couldn't perform her job without it. However, to avoid summary judgment the plaintiff must offer some evidence to explain the apparent inconsistency in these two claims, and prove that she is able to "perform the essential functions" of her job with or without reasonable accommodation.
Keeley, Kuenn & Reid, a Chicago based law firm with government relations affiliates in Washington, D.C., is engaged in the practice of business law, commercial litigation, employment law, taxation, antitrust, product liability, estate planning and legislative matters. Through its affiliates, the firm also meets its clients' needs in protecting intellectual property rights and international commercial law matters.
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