Quick Hits

• The Supreme Court heard arguments in a lawsuit over whether retirees can sue their former employers for disability discrimination involving benefit plans.
• Lower courts are divided on the issue.
• The Supreme Court is likely to rule in this case before its current term ends in late June 2025.

On January 13, 2025, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Stanley v. City of Sanford, Florida, in which a retired firefighter alleged disability discrimination based on the city’s decision to shorten the duration of health benefits for disabled retirees.

Specifically, the court was tasked with answering the question, “Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, does a former employee, who was qualified to perform her job and who earned post-employment benefits while employed, lose her right to sue over discrimination with respect to those benefits solely because she no longer holds her job?”

Background on the Case

The firefighter served for about fifteen years until she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. She became unable to perform essential job functions and retired in 2018 at the age of forty-seven. When she joined the fire department, employees who retired for disability reasons were eligible to receive employer-paid health insurance until age sixty-five. But the city changed the plan in 2003, so that employees who retired for disability reasons (with less than twenty-five years of service) were eligible for employer-paid health insurance for only twenty-four...

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