The Supreme Court held that statements made for the purposes of securing disability benefits, describing why the claimant is too disabled to work do not necessarily bar the disabled individual from claiming in an ADA wrongful termination case that he can perform the essential functions of his job. Cleveland v Policy Mgmt. Sys. Corp. (1999). Rather in this kind of situation, the court has to analyze whether the statements made in a Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) application directly contradict the allegations made in the ADA discrimination lawsuit. Where there is a conflict between the two sets of statements, the claimant must offer some explanation for the inconsistency in order to avoid the dismissal of the ADA lawsuit or avoid being disqualified for SSDI benefits (or both) due to misrepresentation.
It appears that the court provides for a wide latitude for a claimant to explain inconsistency as long as there are not directly factual conflicts in the statements made in a lawsuit and the application for benefits. Thus, in Parker v Columbia Pictures Industries (2000), the court was satisfied with the claimant’s explanation of such inconsistency, where he stated on his SSDI application that he was unable to work, but also claimed in his ADA lawsuit that he was able to work. The explanation was simple enough – the claimant stated that he was able to work with accommodations in his ADA claim (part time schedule), but SSDI application mentions nothing about the accommodation option and there is no way to elaborate on that in that questionnaire. Therefore, the appropriate answer to the question regarding the claimant’s ability to perform his usual, full time work on that application was “no.” This is because being disabled within the meaning of qualifying for SSDI benefits is different from being disabled within ADA (where an employee is able to perform his essential job functions with or without accommodations).