The US Supreme Court ruled on June 20 that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) does not protect retirees from changes to their post-employment benefits, after leaving their jobs.
The court ruling sided with the city of Sanford, Florida, rejecting a lawsuit brought by retirees who said their disability benefits were unfairly cut after they left their jobs.
Justice Neil Gorsuch said the ADA’s language “clearly applies in the present tense,” citing that its protections extend only to current employees or those actively seeking work.
“The statute protects people, not benefits,” Gorsuch wrote, underscoring that retirees no longer meet the law’s definition of a “qualified individual.”
The case, Stanley v. City of Sanford, focused on a group of retired firefighters and other city workers who challenged a policy change that limited health coverage for retirees with disabilities to just two years—down from what had previously extended until Medicare eligibility. The plaintiffs argued the shift disproportionately harmed those who left the workforce due to disability.
Lower courts had been divided on whether the ADA covered former employees.
Disability rights advocates called the decision a step backward. “This leaves a huge population of Americans with disabilities unprotected,” said Laura Gaines, policy director at the National Disability Coalition.
The Court’s majority left the door open for other legal remedies, including under state law or through retirement agreements governed by ERISA. But for now, the ruling narrows the scope of one of the nation’s most important civil rights statutes.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, warning that the decision “creates a dangerous blind spot in the ADA’s framework” and could embolden employers to alter retiree benefits in ways that disproportionately harm workers with disabilities.
