Stanley v. City of StanfordStanley v. City of Stanford
Syllabus
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
STANLEY v. CITY OF SANFORD, FLORIDA
No. 23-997. Argued January 13, 2025—Decided June 20, 2025
Karyn Stanley worked as a firefighter for the City of Sanford, Florida, starting in 1999. When Ms. Stanley was hired, the
Ms. Stanley sued, claiming the City violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by providing different health-insurance benefits to those who retire with 25 years of service and those who retire due to disability. The district court dismissed her ADA claim, reasoning that the alleged discrimination occurred after she retired, when she was not a “qualified individual” under Title I of the ADA,
Held: The judgment is affirmed.
83 F. 4th 1333, affirmed.
JUSTICE GORSUCH delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and II, concluding that, to prevail under
Syllabus
(a)
A “qualified individual” is someone “who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions of the employment position that [she] holds or desires.”
The statute‘s definition of “reasonable accommodation“—“job restructuring,” modifying “existing facilities used by employees,” and altering “training materials or policies,”
Comparing Title I of the ADA and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 reinforces this reading. Title VII protects “employee[s],”
Court precedent supports this interpretation. In Cleveland v. Policy Management Systems Corporation, the Court noted that a plaintiff‘s assertion she is ” ‘unable to work’ will appear to negate an essential element of her ADA case,” anticipating that someone may fall outside
(b) Ms. Stanley argues that
Ms. Stanley‘s surplusage argument—that the Court‘s reading renders
Syllabus
Ms. Stanley argues that Title I‘s broad language allowing “any person alleging discrimination” to sue makes the “qualified individual” language irrelevant. But the statute protects people, not benefits, from discrimination—specifically, qualified individuals.
Finally, Ms. Stanley invokes the ADA‘s purpose of eradicating disability-based discrimination. She argues this goal would be best served by a judicial decision extending Title I‘s protections to retirees. But “legislation [does not] pursu[e] its purposes at all costs,” Rodriguez v. United States, 480 U. S. 522, 525-526, and other laws may protect retirees from discrimination. If Congress wishes to extend Title I to retirees, it can do so. Pp. 7-11.
GORSUCH, J., delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and II, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and THOMAS, ALITO, KAGAN, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined, and an opinion with respect to Part III, in which ALITO, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which BARRETT, J., joined. SOTOMAYOR, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. JACKSON, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOTOMAYOR, J., joined as to Parts III and IV, except for n. 12.
Opinion of the Court
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 23-997
KARYN D. STANLEY, PETITIONER v. CITY OF SANFORD, FLORIDA
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
[June 20, 2025]
JUSTICE GORSUCH announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and II, and an opinion with respect to Part III, in which JUSTICE ALITO, JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, and JUSTICE KAGAN join.
Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act bars employers from “discriminat[ing]
I
Because this case comes to us on a motion to dismiss, we take as true the well-pleaded facts in the plaintiff‘s complaint, National Rifle Association of America v. Vullo, 602 U. S. 175, 181 (2024), and do not consider evidence beyond that pleading,
Ms. Stanley started working as a firefighter for the city of Sanford, Florida (City), in 1999. At first, she planned to serve for 25 years. Complaint in No. 6:20-cv-00629 (MD Fla.), ECF Doc. 1, ¶¶ 13, 16 (Complaint). Part of the reason for that had to do with health insurance. At the time the City hired her, it offered health insurance until age 65 for two categories of retirees: those who retired with 25 years of service, and those who retired earlier because of a disability. Id., ¶ 19. In 2003, though, the City changed its policy. Going forward, it said, it would continue to pay for health insurance up to age 65 for retirees with 25 years of service. Id., ¶¶ 20-21. But for those who retired earlier due to disability, the City announced, it would now provide health insurance for just 24 months, unless the retiree started receiving Medicare benefits sooner. Id., ¶ 20. At some point after the City revised its policy, Ms. Stanley‘s complaint does not say when, she began to suffer from an unspecified disability. Id., ¶ 16. And, in 2018, that “disability forced her to retire” earlier than she had planned. Ibid. Under the City‘s revised policy, that meant she was entitled to at most 24 months of health insurance.
Based on these facts, Ms. Stanley brought suit claiming that the City had violated the ADA and a number of other state and federal laws. Providing different health-insurance benefits to those who retire with 25 years of service and those who retire earlier due to disability, she contended, amounted to impermissible discrimination based on disability. The City responded by filing a motion to dismiss Ms. Stanley‘s complaint for failure to state a claim.
The district court denied that motion in part, allowing some of Ms. Stanley‘s claims to proceed. But with respect to her ADA claim, the district court saw things differently. Ms. Stanley‘s complaint, the court observed, alleged that the City had treated her worse than other similarly situated individuals because of her disability, App. to Pet. for Cert. 21a-22a, what is known as a disparate-treatment claim, see Raytheon Co. v. Hernandez, 540 U. S. 44, 53 (2003). To state such a claim under the ADA, the court continued,
The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. It, too, concluded that
We granted certiorari to resolve the circuits’ disagreement over whether
II
A
The ADA contains five titles separately addressing employment, public entities, public accommodations, telecommunications, and miscellaneous matters. 104 Stat. 327-328. Ms. Stanley brought her suit under Title I, which speaks to employment.
The parties disagree about the meaning of this language, but their dispute is a narrow one. They take as given that retirement benefits, like those at issue here, qualify as “compensation.” See Hishon v. King & Spalding, 467 U. S. 69, 77 (1984); Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. v. EEOC, 462 U. S. 669, 682 (1983). For purposes of our review, we may also assume that the City‘s revision to its retirement-benefits plan constituted “discrimina[tion] . . . on the basis of disability.” The only question that separates the parties is whether
To resolve that disagreement, we turn, as we must, to the statutory terms Congress has given us.
From these directions, one clue emerges immediately. “[T]o ascertain a statute‘s temporal reach,” this Court has “frequently looked to Congress’ choice of verb tense.” Carr v. United States, 560 U. S. 438, 448 (2010). And here, Congress has made it unlawful to “discriminate against” someone
Reinforcing this assessment is the statute‘s definition of “reasonable accommodation.” Title I, recall, prohibits discrimination against an individual who can perform essential job functions “with or without reasonable accommodation.”
Instructive, too, is the fact that another part of the statute speaks differently. Where
Further evidence still comes from examining Title I of the ADA in light of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, as amended,
Beyond all this textual evidence lies our precedent. Construing an earlier version of Title I in Cleveland v. Policy Management Systems Corp., this Court explained that “[a]n ADA plaintiff bears the burden of proving that she is a ‘qualified individual with a disability‘—that is, a person ‘who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions’ of her job.” 526 U. S. 795, 806 (1999) (quoting
B
Against this evidence of statutory meaning, Ms. Stanley and the dissent offer several replies. They begin by suggesting that we should interpret
JACKSON, J.). As Ms. Stanley and the dissent see it, if a plaintiff claims discrimination with respect to a job she seeks or holds, then she must show that she is able to perform that job‘s essential functions. Brief for Petitioner 28. But if the plaintiff neither holds nor desires a job, the argument goes, then she must make no such showing. In that case, the plaintiff is necessarily a “qualified individual,” because it is impossible for someone to be unqualified for a nonexistent position. Id., at 40. Through this series of steps, we are asked to conclude, every retiree is a “qualified individual.”
As easy as it may be to imagine a statute like the one Ms. Stanley and the dissent outline, it bears scant resemblance to the one Congress enacted. Title I might have said, for example, that a qualified individual is one who “can perform the essential functions of the employment position, if any, that such individual holds or desires.” See Brief for Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America as Amicus Curiae 9. But nothing like that italicized language appears in
Separately, Ms. Stanley attempts a surplusage argument. Brief for Petitioner 32-33, 46. She contends that our interpretation of “qualified individual” would render meaningless part of
she submits, the class of qualified individuals must include retirees.
Difficulties attend this argument as well. To start, our reading of “qualified individual” may still leave work for “applicant or employee” to perform in
Perhaps sensing that Title I‘s definition of “qualified individual” goes against them, Ms. Stanley and the dissent next effectively ask us to strike it from the statute. As they point out, Title I allows “any person alleging discrimination on the basis of disability” to sue.
This argument misapprehends the nature of Title I‘s protections. It may be that “retirement benefits are ‘compensation’ protected by the Act.” Brief for Petitioner 21. No
one before us disputes that point. But
But this submission falters, too. For one thing, and as this Court has “emphasized many times,” what Congress (possibly) expected matters much less than what it (certainly) enacted. Patel v. Garland, 596 U. S. 328, 346 (2022). Nobody disputes the ADA‘s stated ambition to root out “discrimination against individuals with disabilities.”
quotation marks omitted). “Legislation is, after all, the art of compromise, the limitations expressed in statutory terms often the price of passage, and no statute yet known pursues its stated purpose at all costs.” Henson v. Santander Consumer USA Inc., 582 U. S. 79, 89 (2017) (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). Accordingly, this Court has long recognized that the “textual limitations upon a law‘s scope” must be understood as “no less a part of its purpose than its substantive authorizations.” Kucana v. Holder, 558 U. S. 233, 252 (2010) (internal quotation marks omitted).
For another, we cannot say Title I‘s textual limitations necessarily clash with the ADA‘s broader purposes. One court of appeals, for example, has predicted that judicial innovations extending
Whether adopting Ms. Stanley‘s and the dissent‘s view of the statute would encourage outcomes like that is anyone‘s
guess. But the possibility underscores why Congress‘s decision to limit the scope of Title I‘s antidiscrimination provision is not necessarily at war with the ADA‘s broader aims. Nor, of course, do the law‘s present
For another thing yet, other avenues may exist for retirees like Ms. Stanley to seek relief. As her own complaint suggests (but the dissent neglects), a variety of other laws besides Title I of the ADA may protect retirees from discrimination with respect to postemployment benefits. Complaint ¶ 1 (alleging claims under state law and the Rehabilitation Act, and an equal protection claim under
Opinion of GORSUCH, J.
III
We took this case to resolve a circuit split over whether a retired employee who does not hold or seek a job is a “qualified individual” under Title I. In her merits briefing, Ms. Stanley invites us to address not just that question but another one, too. Even if
In addressing this additional question, we take as given the Court‘s holding above that a plaintiff pursuing a claim under
into the case, now arguing that she also suffered discrimination “while she was still employed.” Post, at 1 (THOMAS, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). But to suggest that the case before us does not involve a postemployment discrimination, and that the Court “reaches out” to issue an ” ‘advisory opinio[n]’ ” on the subject, ignores both why we took this case and the arguments of the parties before us. Post, at 1-2, 10, 24 (opinion of JACKSON, J.).
Opinion of GORSUCH, J.
pleading states a claim.
Start with the first option. Unlawful discrimination occurs “when a discriminatory compensation decision or other practice is adopted.”
The trouble for Ms. Stanley is that
Opinion of GORSUCH, J.
Turn next to the second option. Unlawful discrimination also occurs “when an individual is affected by application of a discriminatory compensation decision or other practice.”
Now turn to the third option. Unlawful discrimination takes place when “an individual becomes subject to a discriminatory
Recall that Ms. Stanley‘s complaint does not allege what her disability is or when it emerged. As it happens, those facts came out later, after the district court dismissed her ADA claim, and after the parties proceeded to discovery and
vision does not require a qualified individual to be disabled. So, for instance, Title I defines discrimination “on the basis of disability” to include associational discrimination—that is, discriminating against a qualified individual “because of the known disability of an individual with whom the qualified individual is known to have a relationship or association.”
Opinion of GORSUCH, J.
summary judgment on the remaining counts of her complaint. From this later-developed record, it appears that Ms. Stanley was diagnosed with Parkinson‘s disease in 2016. 83 F. 4th, at 1336.
The government argues that these later-developed facts are sufficient to state a claim. After all, during the 2-year period between her diagnosis in 2016 and her retirement in 2018, Ms. Stanley was both “an individual with a disability” and a “qualified individual” who “could still perform the essential functions of her job.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 26-27. During that critical window, too, the government submits, Ms. Stanley was “subject to” an “allegedly discriminatory benefits policy” that reduced her future retirement compensation. Id., at 26; see also Brief for Petitioner 25-26; post, at 5-6 (JACKSON, J., dissenting).
As promising as that theory may be, however, a number of case-specific problems prevent it from helping Ms. Stanley here. For starters, because this dispute comes to us on a motion to dismiss, we cannot look beyond the pleadings. See
Even assuming we could overcome that problem, we would only face another. The Eleventh Circuit held that Ms. Stanley had affirmatively disavowed the government‘s theory. For support, the court pointed to Ms. Stanley‘s representation in her brief below that she did “not claim she was impacted by the discriminatory” City policy “during her
Opinion of GORSUCH, J.
employment.” Brief for Appellant in No. 22-10002, at 22. To be sure, at oral argument Ms. Stanley told the court of appeals otherwise. Recording of Oral Arg. in No. 22-10002 (CA11, Aug. 24, 2023), at 2:45-2:58. And she attempted to adopt an amicus brief the government submitted to the Eleventh Circuit, advancing a theory much like the one it presses here. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in No. 22-10002 (CA11), pp. 11-12. But applying its own rules of argument preservation, the Eleventh Circuit declined to pass on the government‘s theory because Ms. Stanley had not presented it to the district court and had “specifically disclaimed” it in her “own brief” on appeal. 83 F. 4th, at 1344.5
Opinion of GORSUCH, J.
In saying as much, we stress that nothing we say today prevents future plaintiffs—or perhaps even Ms. Stanley herself in a future proceeding—from pursuing a theory along the lines the government proposes. It is simply that the theory cannot help Ms. Stanley in the present posture of this case.6
*
To sum up, we hold that, to prevail under
It is so ordered.
Opinion of THOMAS, J.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 23-997
KARYN D. STANLEY, PETITIONER v. CITY OF SANFORD, FLORIDA
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
[June 20, 2025]
JUSTICE THOMAS, with whom JUSTICE BARRETT joins, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
I join Parts I and II of the Court‘s opinion. I write separately to express my concern with the increasingly common practice of litigants urging this Court to grant certiorari to resolve one question, and then, after we do so, pivoting to an entirely different question. This case exemplifies the problem. We granted review to resolve a Circuit split regarding whether the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) permits suits by former employees who are no longer able to perform the essential functions of their jobs at the time
Opinion of THOMAS, J.
I
The
Stanley began working as a firefighter for the city of Sanford, Florida (City), in 1999. In 2016, Stanley was diagnosed with Parkinson‘s disease. And, in 2018, after 19 years of service, that “disability forced her to retire” early. Complaint in No. 6:20-cv-00629 (MD Fla.), ECF Doc. 1, p. 3, ¶ 16. When she retired, Stanley expected to continue receiving the City‘s health insurance subsidy until she turned 65. At the time of her hiring, the City‘s policy had been to pay a subsidy until age 65 to employees who retired after 25 years of service, as well as to employees who retired early because of disability. But, unbeknownst to Stanley, the City had changed its policy in 2003. Starting in 2003, the City paid the full subsidy for retirees with 25 years of service, but for those who retired earlier due to disability, it provided the subsidy for a maximum of 24 months.
Stanley sued the City, alleging discrimination under the
In her petition for a writ of certiorari before this Court, Stanley asked us to resolve an “important and recurring question“: whether an individual who no longer “holds or desires” his job may sue under Title I of the ADA for discrimination with respect to the “post-employment distribution of fringe benefits.” Pet. for Cert. 1. In other words, Stanley asked us to decide whether former employees who suffer postemployment discrimination can sue under the
Stanley mentioned over two dozen times in her petition that this question has divided the courts of appeals. In two Circuits, Stanley explained, a plaintiff need not be a “qualified individual“—that is, someone who “holds or desires” the employment
Stanley‘s emphasis on the Circuit split was understandable, as it is no secret that Circuit splits get our attention. See this Court‘s Rule 10(a) (conveying that one of our leading considerations in deciding whether to grant certiorari iswhether “a United States court of appeals has entered a decision” that conflicts with “the decision of another United States court of appeals“); see also S. Shapiro, K. Geller, T. Bishop, E. Hartnett, & D. Himmelfarb, Supreme Court Practice §4.4, p. 4-11 (11th ed. 2019) (“The Supreme Court often . . . will grant certiorari where the decision of a federal court of appeals . . . is in direct conflict with a decision of another court of appeals on the same matter of federal law” (emphasis deleted)).
Stanley also emphasized in her petition that the question dividing the courts of appeals is one of “obvious importance.” Pet. for Cert. 33. She conveyed that “[t]he circuit split matters for the forty-four million Americans with disabilities whose rights under the ADA, until the split is resolved, may depend on their employers’ zip codes.” Id., at 30. “[T]he persistence of the circuit split,” she told us, “means that disabled former employees only in certain parts of the country can vindicate their rights under the ADA.” Id., at 30-31.
Stanley further assured us that this case would be a good one for resolving the Circuit split. She told us that her case “cleanly tees the issue up for this Court‘s resolution as a pure question of law with no relevant factual disputes.” Id., at 3. She reiterated that point in her reply brief at the certiorari stage, telling us that “[t]his case is a clean vehicle with no impediments” to settling the Circuit conflict once and for all. Reply to Brief in Opposition 6.
We granted certiorari, adopting the question presented as framed by Stanley.1 602 U. S. ____ (2024). I understood us to have taken the case to resolve the question that the “circuits are split over“—that is, whether the
suits by former employees who no longer hold or desire their job at the time the defendant engages in a discriminatory act. Pet. for Cert. 15 (boldface deleted);
But, something changed after this Court granted certiorari. In her opening brief on the merits, Stanley told us that we “need not even reach the court of appeals’ erroneous holding that the [ADA] only prohibits discrimination against people who currently
The Eleventh Circuit did not opine on the merits of this theory because it determined that Stanley had expressly disavowed it in her brief before that court. 83 F. 4th, at 1344 (explaining that Stanley “affirmatively conceded” in her initial brief that she did not suffer discrimination at any point “during her employment“). The court acknowledged that Stanley had attempted to raise this theory at oral argument. Id., at 1343. And, the court acknowledged that the United States had raised this theory in its brief as amicus curiae, and that Stanley had attempted to adopt that amicus argument. Id., at 1344. But, applying its issue-preservation rules, the Eleventh Circuit determined thatStanley had not properly presented this alternative theory. Id., at 1343-1344.
For the first time in her opening merits brief before this Court, Stanley asked us to reconsider the Eleventh Circuit‘s application of its rules. She argued that “[n]othing supports the assertion” that she conceded her alternative theory below. Brief for Petitioner 24. In her view, she “repeatedly argued” in her Eleventh Circuit brief that she suffered discrimination while employed by the City. Id., at 24-25.2
As I see it, Stanley‘s conduct amounts to a bait-and-switch. She urged this Court to grant certiorari to resolve a Circuit split on one specific legal question. After we agreed to resolve that question, she redirected us to a materially different question. Ante, at 13 (acknowledging that “[w]e took this case to resolve a circuit split,” but Stanley invites us to address “another” question).
II
I do not join Part III of the Court‘s opinion because I would not opine on the merits of a new theory that Stanley did not develop at the certiorari stage.
Redirecting this Court‘s focus to an entirely new question at the merits stage is difficult to square with this Court‘s Rules. Our Rule 14.1 requires a petitioner to set forth the questions it would like this Court to decide in the petition for a writ of certiorari. “Only the questions set out in the petition, or fairly included therein, will be considered by the Court.” Rule 14.1(a). Thus, our rules prevent us from reaching any question that is not “fairly included” in the
question presented. Izumi Seimitsu Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha v. U.S. Philips Corp., 510 U. S. 27, 31 (1993) (per curiam).3
Moreover, redirecting our focus to a different question has the effect of undermining this Court‘s efforts to manage its merits docket. We receive thousands of petitions each year, and the vast majority of those petitions raise issues of deep importance to the parties involved in those cases. “To use our resources most efficiently,” we must confine our review to “those cases that will enable us to resolve particularly important questions.” Yee v. Escondido, 503 U. S. 519, 536 (1992); accord, U. S. Philips Corp., 510 U. S., at 33. If we were “to entertain questions not presented in the petition for certiorari, much of this efficiency would vanish, as parties who feared an inability to prevail on the question presented would be encouraged to fill their limited briefing
space and argument time with discussion of issues other than the one on which certiorari was granted.” Yee, 503 U. S., at 536.
We have reached issues outside the question presented “only in the most exceptional cases,” when required by considerations of “urgency” or “economy.” Id., at 535. I do not object to going beyond the question presented in such circumstances. But, there is nothing exceptional about Stanley‘s case. To start, had she been more transparent at the certiorari stage, I doubt this Court would have granted review of her alternative question. See this Court‘s Rule 10. Stanley‘s new theory of liability is that she can base her ADA claim on discrimination that allegedly occurred while she was still employed by the City. To address that theory, however, we would first need to decide whether the Eleventh Circuit erroneously applied its own issue-preservation rules and erred in concluding that Stanley had disclaimed this theory below. Stanley did not petition for review of the Eleventh Circuit‘s issue-preservation determination. And, I doubt that we would have agreed to review the factbound application of uncontested Eleventh Circuit precedents. “A petition for a writ of certiorari is rarely granted when the asserted error consists of erroneous factual findings or the misapplication of a properly stated rule of law.” Ibid.
Even if this Court were willing to bypass the Eleventh Circuit‘s issue-preservation determination, it is unlikely that we would have agreed to opine on the merits of Stanley‘s alternative theory in the first instance. Neither the District Court nor the Eleventh Circuit passed on whether Stanley could base her claim on events that occurred while she was still employed. That no court has decided this question is
In all events, our usual practice is to respect and leave undisturbed a lower court‘s issue-preservation determination when that determination is not itself under review. Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U. S. 106, 121 (1976). I see no reason to depart from that practice here.
*
Stanley asked this Court to grant certiorari to resolve a discrete Circuit split. After we agreed to do so, she asked us to resolve an entirely different legal question. I do not find it “profitable” to reward Stanley‘s bait-and-switch in these circumstances. Ante, at 13.
I encourage litigants before this Court to remain focused on the questions presented in the petition for a writ of certiorari and only those questions—after this Court grants certiorari. Redirecting us to a different legal question at the merits stage can be disruptive, inefficient, and unfair to all involved. Of course, Stanley is not the first litigant to resist the question presented before this Court. I hope, however, that this Court and future parties will take seriously the obligation to adhere to the question presented.
Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 23-997
KARYN D. STANLEY, PETITIONER v. CITY OF SANFORD, FLORIDA
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
[June 20, 2025]
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I join Parts III and IV, except footnote 12, of the dissent because, in my view, Title I‘s prohibition on disability discrimination does not cease the day an employee retires. As JUSTICE JACKSON explains, when an employer makes a discriminatory change in postemployment benefits that a retiree earned while qualified and employed, the employer discriminates against the person in her capacity as a qualified individual. See post, at 21-22; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 29-32. Because the Court eschews that common-sense understanding of the statutory text, I also respectfully dissent in part.
Notwithstanding the Court‘s error on that question, at least five Justices (four in the plurality and JUSTICE JACKSON in dissent) agree that plaintiffs in Lt. Stanley‘s shoes can plead disability discrimination if they were “subject to a discriminatory compensation decision or other practice” while a qualified individual within the majority‘s understanding of that term. See ante, at 15 (plurality opinion); see post, at 5, and n. 4 (JACKSON, J., dissenting) (explaining that Stanley and those in her “shoes” could recover because, “[b]efore retiring, Lt. Stanley had a disability, was a qualified individual who performed the essential functions of her job despite that disability, and wassubjected to an allegedly discriminatory policy based on her disability“). That remains true even if the employee does not file her lawsuit until after she retires, as long as she was subject to a discriminatory policy while both disabled and a qualified individual. See Brief for Respondent 30 (agreeing that a former employee need not be a “qualified individual” at the time of the lawsuit“).
There is good reason to think that Stanley herself was subject to the allegedly discriminatory policy at issue here while
JACKSON, J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 23-997
KARYN D. STANLEY, PETITIONER v. CITY OF SANFORD, FLORIDA
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
[June 20, 2025]
JUSTICE JACKSON, with whom JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR joins as to Parts III and IV, except for footnote 12, dissenting.
Retirement benefits are essential building blocks of the American Dream. Workers typically earn these benefits on the job and reap the rewards after leaving the workforce. Congress has long understood that, by enabling workers to retire with dignity, independence, and security, retirement benefits are a critical aspect of job-related compensation. Thus, no one seriously disputes that the
As I understand today‘s holding, the Court has decided that if a worker who has earned retirement benefits leaves the workforce (as expected) and is then discriminated against with respect to the provision of those earned benefits because she is disabled, Title I offers no protection. To get to this counterintuitive conclusion, the Court relies on Title I‘s “qualified individual” definition—a provision designed to protect employers from having to employ those who cannot do the work, not to cut off the rights of those who already finished it. Making matters worse, the Court has to extend itself to reach this stingy outcome, becausethe case before us does not present a scenario involving discrimination that took place only postemployment.
In short, the Court overlooks both the actual facts presented in this case and the clear design of the
I
Congress passed and President George H. W. Bush signed the
Title I of the
As the
Today, however, the Court takes Title I‘s qualified-individual definition out of context and assigns it an additional function: to act as a strict temporal limit on the reach of Title I‘s protections. That is, the Court reads the qualified-individual provision to mean that only those who hold or desire a job when alleged discrimination occurs can claim Title I‘s protection. See ante, at 18. It is on that ground that the Court concludes that Lt. Karyn Stanley—a now-retired firefighter suffering from Parkinson‘s disease—cannot make out a Title I claim against her former employer for (assumed) disability discrimination relating to retirement benefits that she earned in the line of duty.
In my view, for the reasons explained below, the Court is wrong twice over. It should not have used this case to make any pronouncements about the viability of a Title I discrimination claim that arises after an employee retires. And it misreads Title I to introduce a time-related limitation that appears nowhere in the statute Congress wrote.
II
A
Because this case arises from a
Like the majority, I will start by assuming that what Lt. Stanley alleges to be discriminatory conduct by the city of Sanford, Florida (the City), in fact violated the
Lt. Stanley was employed as a firefighter by the Sanford Fire Rescue Department for just shy of two decades. Complaint in No. 6:20-cv-00629 (MD Fla.), ECF Doc. 1, p. 2, ¶ 4. She started in 1999 and was promoted to Lieutenant in 2005. Id., at 3, ¶¶ 13-15. Lt. Stanley remained continuously employed in that position until November 2018, when she was forced to take disability retirement due to her physical disability. Id., at 3, ¶ 16.1
Lt. Stanley‘s complaint alleges that the City‘s “taking away” of the prior disability-insurance policy denied disabled retirees like her “equal access to health insurance.” Id., at 8, ¶ 37. She further alleges that the new 24-month coverage policy violates the
agree that, under the
Based on the facts Lt. Stanley alleges, the Fair Pay Act framework supplies the answer to the question presented in this case.3 Before retiring, Lt. Stanley had a disability, was a qualified individual who performed the essential functions of her job despite that disability, and was subject to an allegedly discriminatory policy based on her disability, insofar as the City changed its retirement-benefits package in a manner that disadvantaged disabled retirees. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 26-27. Thus, it made no sense for the City to argue for dismissal of Lt. Stanley‘s ADA claim (as it did) on the ground that she was not a qualified individual at the relevant time.
On the facts as alleged in her complaint, the City subjected Lt. Stanley to the discriminatory policy during her employment, not only after she retired.4 So, Lt. Stanley was performing the essential functions of her job at the preretirement point at which she became disabled and was subjected to the new policy. This made her a qualified individual, notwithstanding the City‘s counterfactual contention.
Opinion of THOMAS, J.
B
1
The Court has decided not to resolve this case on that straightforward ground. A plurality of the Court says, instead, that “case-specific problems prevent [those facts] from helping [Lt.] Stanley here.” Ante, at 14-15. Even setting aside the plurality‘s failure to accept Lt. Stanley‘s plausible factual allegations and to draw reasonable inferences in her favor, I disagree with its analysis of the “case-specific problems.” In my view, none of the plurality‘s concerns precludes this Court
First, the plurality says Lt. Stanley‘s complaint does not allege her diagnosis, its timing, and whether she had the disability while she was still working. See ante, at 16. But her complaint tells us that she had a disability and eventually had to retire because of it. This is enough to draw a “plausible inference” that she worked with a disability and was thus subject to the discriminatory policy some time before retiring. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U. S. 662, 682 (2009).
Second, the plurality claims that, in the proceedings below, Lt. Stanley “affirmatively disavowed” the argument that she was discriminated against while still working. Ante, at 16. Not so. All she said was that she did “not claim she was impacted by the discriminatory’ City policy ‘during her employment.‘” Ibid. (quoting Brief for Appellant in No. 22-10002 (CA11), p. 22; emphasis added). But whether someone was impacted (affected) by a policy is distinct from whether they were subject to it. See
Third, the plurality contends that, in “applying its own rules of argument preservation, the Eleventh Circuit declined to pass” on Lt. Stanley‘s “theory” that she was discriminated against during her employment, and that this Court did not grant certiorari to decide whether that assessment was correct. Ante, at 17. But Lt. Stanley‘s “theory“was merely a response to the City‘s argument that her complaint failed to state a claim. Moreover, the allegation that the relevant discriminatory act took place while she was still on the job tees up the question we did grant certiorari to address: “Under the [ADA], 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?” Pet. for Cert. i (emphasis added). Lt. Stanley maintains that she states a claim for discrimination under the
2
What is more, “[o]ur traditional rule is that ‘[o]nce a federal claim is properly presented, a party can make any argument in support of that claim; parties are not limited to the precise arguments they made below.‘” Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation, 513 U. S. 374, 379 (1995) (quoting Yee v. Escondido, 503 U. S. 519, 534 (1992);
second alteration in original). And,
If the traditional rule applies anywhere, it should be in a case of this nature. This claim was brought by a disabled firefighter suffering from Parkinson‘s who has consistently maintained that the City‘s change to its retirement-benefits policy (implemented while she was an employee) discriminates against disabled beneficiaries. If we extend leniency to professional advocacy organizations when they craft allegations, see, e.g., Citizens United, 558 U.S., at 331, it seems only fair to extend that same grace to those with limited resources to game out long-term litigation strategies.6
Moreover, it bears noting that this case comes to us on review of a complaint, which need only plead facts sufficient to support a claim, not comprehensive legal theories. See Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U. S. 521, 530 (2011). If we were reviewing a summary judgment or trial record developed on Lt. Stanley‘s district-court legal theories, the plurality might have a point. But, at the pleading stage, a legal claim rises or falls based on the facts—not theories—alleged.
If all that were not enough, the case record here establishes that Lt. Stanley tried below to make the point that
the discriminatory act she was complaining of occurred during her employment, once the City made timing an issue. For instance, Lt. Stanley’s opening brief to the Eleventh Circuit incorporated the Government’s amicus brief, which argued that, contrary to what the City had asserted, Lt. Stanley had suffered the alleged discrimination while employed. Brief for Appellant in No. 22–10002, at viii, 10; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in No. 22-10002, pp. 5, 11 21; see also Reply for Appellant in No. 22–10002, pp. 4-13. Lt. Stanley and the Government also made this point repeatedly to the Eleventh Circuit at oral argument. Recording of Oral Arg. in No. 22–10002 (Aug. 24, 2023), at 0:35–5:50, 6:00–7:30, 8:20–9:20.
It is true that, instead of accepting the facts as Lt. Stanley alleged them (and as the Federal Rules and our precedents require), the Eleventh Circuit rejected Lt. Stanley’s and the Government’s attempts to set the record straight about the timing question. But it is odd, to say the least, that Lt. Stanley is now being penalized for her thwarted earlier attempts to assert that the City’s discriminatory actions occurred while she was still an employee—especially when she might have been able to make that point here if she had skipped saying this to the Eleventh Circuit entirely and had pointed it out to us in the first instance. Cf. Citizens United, 558 U. S., at 331 (holding that parties can make any argument in this Court to support their claim, even one not raised below).7
Regardless of how the Eleventh Circuit handled the allegations in this case, in my view, we need to remember that our Court’s role is to decide what the law is for the entire Nation. That reach carries with it the heightened responsibility to tether the legal principles we pronounce to the facts of the case before us, lest we not only create unfairness for particular parties but also allow a poor vehicle to drive us—and the law—astray. Considering questions of law divorced from the actual facts raises doubts about our authority under
The discrepancy between real life and our legal decisionmaking matters in concrete and demonstrable ways. A retiree who alleges disability discrimination that first occurs only after they have retired is in a materially different position from one who was subjected to that same discriminatory action during her employment. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 11 (“When an employer makes a discriminatory change in a plaintiff’s post-employment benefits, it retroactively alters the plaintiff’s terms or conditions of employment and changes the compensation she earned as an employee performing the essential functions of her job—that is, as a qualified individual”). Whether or not Title I covers that circumstance does not answer whether a plaintiff like Lt. Stanley—who did not suffer a retroactive change to her terms and conditions of employment, but was instead subjected to the allegedly discriminatory policy while employed—can sue.
When we realized that Lt. Stanley’s case does not present a circumstance of discrimination that occurs only after one’s employment ends, we had two reasonable options. We could have applied our traditional rule, allowing Lt. Stanley to make all arguments in support of her claim, and then considered how the alleged facts of her case fare under the law as we understand it. Alternatively, we could have dismissed the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted and awaited a true case of postemployment discrimination to decide that question. Instead, the Court chooses door number three: to close its eyes to what Lt. Stanley actually alleges and use her case nonetheless to answer an important legal question that does not arise from the facts in her complaint. Thus, in this of all cases, the Court abandons “its considered practice not to decide abstract, hypothetical or contingent questions.” Alabama State Federation of Labor v. McAdory, 325 U. S. 450, 461 (1945); cf. McCoy v. Louisiana, 584 U. S. 414, 429 (2018) (ALITO, J., dissenting) (“The Constitution gives us the authority to decide real cases and controversies; we do not have the right to simplify or otherwise change the facts of a case in order to make our work easier or to achieve a desired result”).
III
The second misstep that the Court makes in this case is to construe Title I of the ADA to allow employers to engage in postemployment discrimination. The text of the statute itself says nothing—zero—about the preemployment or postemployment timing of an act of disability discrimination. Nevertheless, the Court homes in on one isolated provision (the qualified-individual definition), detaches it from its place in the overall scheme, and converts it into a strict limitation on the temporal reach of Title I’s protection.
In my view, settled law requires a different path. We should have followed the method this Court employed when it addressed a comparable question of statutory interpretation in Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., 519 U. S. 337 (1997). There, we held that “employees” in Title VII covers former employees. Id., at 346. To reach that conclusion, we analyzed the text, context, and purposes of the provisions at issue. Applied here, those indicators confirm that Title I prohibits disability discrimination in the postemployment payout of benefits earned during an employee’s tenure.
A
Robinson first says to consider whether the statute’s text supplies “a plain and unambiguous” answer to the question of what the statute allows. Id., at 340. The “inquiry must cease” at text alone only “if the statutory language is unambiguous and ‘the statutory scheme is coherent and consistent.’” Ibid. (quoting United States v. Ron Pair Enterprises, Inc., 489 U. S. 235, 240 (1989)). Title I’s text and overall scheme do not foreclose—much less unambiguously so—retirees’ ability to sue over discrimination in the postemployment payout of benefits they earned on the job.
Consider first what Title I’s text does not say. Title I does not categorically exclude former employees or retirees from the ADA’s protection. Nor does it explicitly carve out postemployment discrimination as nonactionable. Nothing in the statute actually says that one must currently hold or desire a job to obtain protection from the forms of disability discrimination that Title I prohibits. And Title I does not place a temporal limit on the reach of its protections.
What the text of Title I does plainly convey is broad protection for workers against disability discrimination with respect to job-related benefits.
So where does the majority find its purported temporal limit on Title I’s protections? Almost exclusively in the statute’s qualified-individual definition. Recall that
The false equivalence of these two very different scenarios fuels the majority’s effort to sustain a textualist case for a temporal limitation. But nothing in the text compels it. It is perfectly permissible to read the qualified-individual definition as setting a conditional mandate: If a plaintiff relies on Title I regarding a job she seeks to obtain or hold, then she must be able to perform the essential functions of that job. Brief for Petitioner 3. Conditional mandates like this appear in daily life. Imagine seeing a sign that reads: “To live in this apartment building, you must be able to clean up after the pets that you own.”
Read that way, the qualified-individual mandate operates to protect employers from having to extend employment to those who cannot do a job. See Part III–B, infra. It says nothing about the time at which the alleged discrimination must occur relative to one’s period of employment.9
The majority runs in a series of textualist circles, attempting to find the explicit temporal limit it seeks in the qualified-individual definition’s text. But it comes up short of anything to confirm that the qualified-individual definition is an expression of Congress’s temporal limit on all of Title I. And the reality is that Title I’s text contains neither an express prohibition against nor authorization for retiree lawsuits challenging postemployment discrimination. Because text alone does not supply an unambiguous answer, Robinson’s framework tells us to proceed to understand the context in which the “qualified individual” definition appears in Title I, as well as the point of that provision—i.e., what, exactly, Congress designed that definition to do.
Congress incorporated the qualified-individual provision into Title I of the ADA to address a particular problem. Its legislative history makes clear that, by adding this provision, Congress simply “intend[ed] to reaffirm that [Title I] does not undermine an employer’s ability to choose and maintain qualified workers.” H. R. Rep. No. 101–485, pt. 2, at 55. Congress was responding to businesses’ concerns that protecting disabled workers would mean requiring employers to hire employees whose disabilities could threaten “the health or safety of others,” damage “property,” or prevent the completion of the work.
Congress added the qualified-individual provision to make clear that the answer to these and similar questions was yes.
The “qualified” aspect of Title I’s protection thus recognizes that, in certain situations, employers may lawfully discriminate against applicants and current employees based on disability. Specifically, employers may do so if disability renders someone unable to perform the essential functions of a job that she holds or desires. And that makes perfect sense when a plaintiff seeks Title I’s protection with respect to hiring, promotion, or firing determinations. E.g., Cleveland v. Policy Management Systems Corp., 526 U. S. 795, 806 (1999) (wrongful-discharge plaintiff had to show she could “‘perform the essential functions’ of her job”).
A retiree seeking to remedy discrimination as to the payout of benefits already earned on the job, by contrast, does not trigger the concerns that motivated Congress to craft a qualified-individual metric. See, e.g., Castellano v. New York, 142 F. 3d 58, 68 (CA2 1998) (“Where the alleged discrimination relates to the provision of post-employment benefits, rather than to hiring, promotion, or firing, Congress’s expressed concern about qualifications is no longer implicated”). Unlike allowing disability discrimination against someone who is or seeks to be in the workforce but cannot do the job, authorizing disability discrimination against a retiree who was in the workforce, but has now left it, has nothing to do with the problem Congress was addressing when it imposed the conditions in the qualified-individual definition.
The long and short of it is that the qualified-individual provision’s function is to protect employers from having to hire and maintain employees who cannot do the work. That provision is not designed to serve as a temporal limit that extinguishes the rights of those who already did the work and have now left the job. Nor does it make any sense—given Title I’s overall scheme—for the qualified-individual provision to moonlight as such a temporal restriction. If Congress had wanted the qualified-individual definition to do the work of cutting off discrimination claims that arise
C
It is clear, then, that the majority has commandeered Title I’s qualified-individual definition and used it to steer today’s legal analysis through wholly inapposite terrain. Doing this not only diverges from Congress’s design but also leads to anomalous results. That is, even as the majority assumes that Title I protects retirement benefits, it adopts an interpretation that severely undermines those protections, rendering them null just when they matter most. Worse still, the majority’s reading of this statute counteracts the objective of the qualified-individual provision—the very provision on which the majority’s holding turns.
Under the majority’s logic, if an employer cuts off an employee’s entitlement to retiree health benefits (because of their disability) one day before they retire, the employee can sue. But if the employer waits until one day after that employee’s retirement (assuming the employee no longer desires the job they held), Title I offers them no protection.
Imagine a janitor who is deaf. She works decades at a school, performing all essential functions of her job. During that time, she earns retirement benefits, including postemployment health insurance and a pension. After she retires, the school cuts off her employer-provided retirement benefits on the ground that “it was always a nuisance to have to accommodate her all those years”—i.e., because of her deafness. Does Title I protect her against this blatant disability discrimination? Per today’s holding, the majority says no. Even though the school has taken away job-related benefits that the janitor earned during her working years, she is out of luck because—the majority reasons—Title I’s protections are limited only to those who hold or desire a job.
Arbitrariness abounds. If the retired janitor remains able to perform the essential functions of her job, and if she still wants to work, then she can bring a Title I suit to challenge the school’s discrimination in the payout of retirement benefits she already earned. But if she can no longer perform the essential functions of her job, or if she simply no longer desires a job, then she cannot. See Brief for AFL-CIO as Amicus Curiae 5. But why would Congress hinge the retired janitor’s protection against discrimination in the benefits she earned while working on whether she wants and can perform a job in the future? While she was working, she could perform the essential functions of her job and thereby earned the benefits in question—isn’t that what matters in any coherent and consistent scheme designed to protect against disability discrimination?10
It is illogical to conclude that, while Congress wanted to protect against discrimination with respect to retirement benefits, it crafted a statute that implicitly cuts off those protections the moment a worker last clocks out. Holding as much allows employers to evade Title I’s retirement-benefit protections by bait and switch. They need not refrain from discrimination; all they have to do is wait.
Rather than unfastening the qualified-individual definition from the objective that compelled it and construing that provision to limit the broad protections that the ADA confers, I would adopt the statutory reading most consistent with the overall design of Title I. Congress passed the ADA to protect people with disabilities, and it crafted Title I, in particular, to provide disabled workers with meaningful protections against disability discrimination in the provision of job-related retirement benefits. To properly evaluate the intended scope of Title I’s protections, courts need to situate its provisions within that broader context.
A
At our best, this Court has appreciated the ADA’s “broad
mandate” and “sweeping purpose” for remedying “widespread discrimination against disabled individuals.” PGA TOUR, Inc. v. Martin, 532 U. S. 661, 674–675 (2001). We have called the statute’s “‘comprehensive character’” one of its “most impressive strengths.” Id., at 675. And we have seen it as Congress designed it—“‘a milestone on the path to a more decent, tolerant, progressive society.’” Ibid.
Reading Title I to prohibit postemployment discrimination in the provision of retirement benefits (as I do) aligns with the broader purposes of the ADA. Retirement benefits are an essential aspect of the “equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency” that the ADA promotes.
In other words, Title I’s protections encourage disabled Americans to enter the workforce and have an equal opportunity to earn all that a good job brings to workers and their families. Retirement benefits are a key piece of that pie. Brief for AARP et al. as Amici Curiae 19 (describing retirement benefits as a key factor in workers’ job-related decisions). After all, workers often decide whether to enter the workforce, and when to leave, based on the terms of such benefits. Protecting disabled Americans’ right to receive all that they earned during their working years—free from disability discrimination in retirement—is essential to a faithful application of Congress’s handiwork.
The majority skips past these anchoring objectives; it hastily assumes Congress wanted to confer protection against job-related disability discrimination (to include discrimination related to the provision of retirement benefits), ante, at 9, but then treats the many provisions of the ADA that demonstrate this congressional purpose as irrelevant to an interpretation of Title I’s reach, ante, at 9–10. In my view, Congress’s clear aims are not so easily avoided.
A comprehensive look at Title I reveals its protection of retirement benefits in at least three places.
Congress also crafted Title I knowing that courts had construed these terms in similar statutes to include retirement benefits. This Court had held, for example, that a “benefit need not accrue before a person’s employment is completed to be a term, condition, or privilege of that employment relationship.” Hishon v. King & Spalding, 467 U. S. 69, 77 (1984). It had thus made clear that “[p]ension benefits” “qualify as terms, conditions, or privileges of employment even though they are received only after employment terminates.” Ibid. Five Justices had also reasoned that “[t]here is no question that the opportunity to participate in a deferred compensation plan constitutes a ‘conditio[n] or privileg[e] of employment,’ and that retirement benefits constitute a form of ‘compensation.’” Arizona Governing Comm. for Tax Deferred Annuity and Deferred Compensation Plans v. Norris, 463 U. S. 1073, 1079 (1983) (Marshall, J., joined by Brennan, White, Stevens, and O’Connor, JJ., concurring in judgment in part) (footnote omitted). And the Court had further clarified that “[a] benefit that is part and parcel of the employment relationship may not be doled out in a discriminatory fashion.” Hishon, 467 U. S., at 75.
B
This backdrop highlights not only that Congress viewed retirement benefits to be a protected form of employee compensation, but also how Congress intended for this particular form of protection from disability discrimination to operate. To be specific: Retirement benefits are not payments to retirees for something they do postemployment (i.e., when they neither have nor desire a job). Rather, as we held in an analogous context just before the ADA’s passage, “retirement benefits are deferred compensation for past years of service rendered.” Davis v. Michigan Dept. of Treasury, 489 U. S. 803, 808, 810 (1989) (interpreting statute that consented to state “taxation of pay or compensation for personal service as an officer or employee of the United States” to cover federal retirement benefits, because they are compensation for service as a federal employee). Thus, as we recognized in Davis, although workers receive these benefits after they retire, workers earn these benefits as employees—during their employment. Ibid.
If an employer alters the payout of benefits based on an employee’s disability after that individual’s employment ends—say, by reducing pension benefits—the employer has discriminatorily changed the terms and conditions of employment that the individual was subject to while working.11 The retiree earns those benefits as an employee; therefore, the postemployment adverse action retroactively discriminates against that previously qualified individual. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 29–32. So,
even assuming (as the majority does) that the individual’s qualifications are apposite to this particular scope-of-coverage question (but see Part III–A, supra), the individual could perform the job’s essential functions when it mattered—when the individual earned the benefits.
So it is here. A retiree who worked and earned benefits as a qualified individual, then suffered discrimination at the payout stage for those benefits in retirement, is covered by Title I’s protections. On such facts, fairly interpreted, the employer has “discriminate[d] against a qualified individual . . . in regard to . . . employee compensation.”
C
Waving off Congress’s broader objectives, the majority notes that legislation does not “pursu[e] its stated purpose at all costs.” Ante, at 11 (internal quotation marks omitted).
This common rejoinder attacks a strawman. Looking to a statute’s purposes helps us to understand—not override—that statute’s text. And while legislators may not pursue their purposes “at all costs,” such calibrations and the compromises they reflect do not make legislative purposes irrelevant to a full and fair evaluation of what a statutory provision means, as the majority suggests.
Too often, this Court closes its eyes to context, enactment history, and the legislature’s goals when assessing statutory meaning. I cannot abide that narrow-minded approach. If a statute’s text does not provide a clear answer to a question, it is not our role to keep twisting and turning those words until self-confirmatory observations solidify our “first blush” assumptions. Robinson, 519 U. S., at 341.12
Courts should remember that “[l]egislation has an aim; it seeks to obviate some mischief, to supply an inadequacy, to effect a change of policy, to formulate a plan of government.” F. Frankfurter, Some Reflections
Congress’ likely intent in enacting the statutory provision before us.” Zuni Public School Dist. No. 89 v. Department of Education, 550 U. S. 81, 93 (2007). Crucially, this keeps us to our proper role as judges in a democratic system. See United States v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 310 U. S. 534, 542 (1940) (courts’ role in interpreting statutes is “to construe the language so as to give effect to the intent of Congress”).
Here, instead of rendering Title I’s retirement-benefit protections an empty promise by adopting a reading “destructive of [its] purpose,” the Court should have adopted the reading that is not only plainly text-based but is also “more consistent with the broader context of [Title I] and the primary purpose of” its protections. Robinson, 519 U. S., at 346. In my view, in the absence of any clear temporal limitation on the scope of Title I, the best interpretation would permit those who were qualified enough to earn benefits while working to seek a remedy for postemployment discrimination in the payout of those benefits.
* * *
Disabled Americans who have retired from the workforce simply want to enjoy the fruits of their labor free from discrimination. Congress plainly protected their right to do so when it crafted Title I. Yet, the Court ignores that right today. It reaches out to cut off postemployment protection against disability discrimination in a case that does not require us to decide that question; seizes upon the inapposite text of the qualified-individual definition; and converts that text into a temporal limit it was never designed to be. Worse still, by doing all this, the Court renders meaningless Title I’s protections for disabled workers’ retirement benefits just when those protections matter most.
It is lamentable that this Court so diminishes disability rights that the People (through their elected representatives) established more than three decades ago. Even so, there is hope for a legislative intervention to fix the mistake the Court has made. Americans with disabilities have proven time and again that they can overcome long odds in fighting for their own equality. When that happens, my one wish would be for this Court to stay out of their way.