A firefighter with Parkinson's lost her health benefits. Supreme Court weighs if she can sue
The Supreme Court case could affect millions of older Americans who retire because of a disability, the AARP says.
WASHINGTON − When Karyn Stanley retired early from firefighting in 2018, she expected most of her health insurance to be covered under the original terms of her job.
But Stanley said she discovered the city of Sanford, Florida, had changed its policy for those leaving because of a disability, such as Stanley’s debilitating Parkinson disease.
Rather than receiving an approximately $1,000 monthly insurance subsidy until she turned 65, the 47-year-old was cut off after two years.
When Stanley tried to sue the city using a federal law created in 1990 to protect people with disabilities from discrimination, a federal appeals court said the Americans with Disabilities Act doesn’t cover former employees.
On Monday, the Supreme Court will debate whether it does.
The AARP said the court’s decision will affect millions of older Americans who retire because of a disability and could be denied equal access to health insurance benefits when they need them most.
Stanley also has the backing of the Justice Department, which is joining her lawyers in arguing on her behalf in Monday’s oral arguments.
But business groups and associations representing cities and counties said that if the Supreme Court sides with Stanley, the cost of offering post-employment health insurance will increase, making it less likely employers will continue to offer it.
The Americans with Disabilities Act was designed to ensure that current employees and job applicants aren't discriminated against, not to regulate employers' relationships with former employees, they argue.
The Social Security Administration predicts that more than one in four current 20-year-olds will become disabled before reaching retirement.
The legal argument centers on how the Americans with Disabilities Act defines who is protected from discrimination. The law covers someone who “with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions of the employment position that such individual holds or desires.”
Because Stanley can no longer perform the essential functions of the job, she is no longer covered, according to the city.
Stanley’s lawyers argue she was employed – and thus covered by the law − when her future benefits were curtailed in 2003. They also say the entire statute makes more sense when read to treat retirees as covered.
“Congress never enacted this arbitrary regime, which makes outright discrimination unlawful up until an employee’s last day of work – and then perfectly lawful the moment she clocks out for the last time,” they said in a filing.
When Stanley became a firefighter in 1999, the city paid for $1,000 of her approximately $1,300 monthly premium for health insurance. Anyone retiring after 25 years of service or because of a disability would continue to receive the benefit until age 65.
But in 2003, the city reduced the subsidy for those retiring from a disability.
Stanley’s attorneys say the change decimated her promised benefits. She’s continued to pay out of pocket the full cost of the premium to cover her Parkinson’s treatment. But no other disabled retirees have been able to stay on the city’s insurance after losing the subsidy, her lawyers told the court.
The city said it was forced in 2003 to change the benefit to cut costs. But Stanley was still treated better – not worse – than nondisabled employees who retired with less than 25 years of service because she retained the subsidy for two years, city attorneys said.
Employee compensation typically constitutes at least half of a locality’s budget, associations representing municipalities told the Supreme Court.
Stanley’s “broad interpretation” of who is covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act “could lead to a flood of litigation – and its costs – whenever budgets are rebalanced,” the groups said in a filing.
But disability rights organizations said the right to sue for discrimination doesn’t “blink out of existence” once the worker has retired.
Otherwise, the groups said, the ADA’s protections against discrimination mean the least when they are needed the most – when workers with disabilities have lost their jobs and are often unable to get another.
“These workers,” the groups told the court, “should not be denied access to post-employed benefits that nondisabled workers enjoy.”