Monday, December 21, 2010, the District of Columbia Circuit decided Solomon v. Vilsack and held, as a matter of first impression, that a federal employee receiving disability retirement benefits is not barred from bringing a discrimination claim.
The holding is particularly important for employees who retire because they have been denied a reasonable accommodation that would have enabled them to stay on the job. Had the case gone the other way, the denial of reasonable accommodations could only be reviewed if the employee would forgo disability retirement benefits.
John Karl of Washington, D.C. argued the case for the plaintiff-appellant. Dave Wachtel of Bernabei & Wachtel led the drafting of an amicus brief from the Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association
Brian East, of Austin, Texas described the case for the National Employment Lawyers nelanet
In 1999 in Cleveland v. Policy Management Systems (brought by Texas affiliate member John Wall) the Supreme Court held that the receipt of SSDI benefits does not bar an ADA claim, but instead just requires an ADA plaintiff to satisfactorily explain any sworn statements in the benefit application that appear to conflict with the position in the ADA claim that the employee was able to do her/his job. Since then, the same concept has been applied in cases involving receipt of SSI, comp, and private disability-insurance benefits.
A new case extends the same analysis to federal-sector employees who receive disability retirement benefits from the Federal Employees Retirement System, and who bring claims under the Rehabilitation Act. In Solomon v. Vilsack, ___ F.3d ___, 2010 WL 5155581 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 21, 2010), the court held:
Guided by the Supreme Court's analysis in Cleveland … we conclude (1) that claims for federal disability retirement benefits and disability-discrimination claims under the Rehabilitation Act do not so inherently conflict as to justify presumptively barring recipients of such benefits from asserting Rehabilitation Act claims, and (2) that a reasonable jury could find that the statements appellant and her doctor made in support of her application for disability benefits are consistent with her current claim that she could have performed the essential functions of her position with reasonable accommodation.
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