# Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc. > Supreme Court of the United States · June 22, 1999 · 527 U.S. 471 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433852 ## Case - **Full name:** SUTTON Et Al. v. UNITED AIR LINES, INC. - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** June 22, 1999 - **Citations:** 527 U.S. 471; 119 S. Ct. 2139; 144 L. Ed. 2d 450; 1999 U.S. LEXIS 4371 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Dissent by Breyer - **Judges:** O'Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, Stevens, Breyer - **Cited by:** 1,788 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - **Yellow flag:** Reported superseded by statute, as recognized in Mercado v. Government of PR — not on the Supreme Court's list. - Negative treatments: 2 - Distinguished by: 3 - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433852 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - holding the City was not entitled to simply rely on the physician’s that mitigating or corrective measures must be taken into recommendation2as the basis for withdrawing its employment account in judging whether an individual possesses a offer to Holiday. See, e.g., EEOC v. Te… - holding that a complaint alleging that two job applicants were "regarded as” disabled by an employer was properly dismissed because the job applicants had not alleged and could not demonstrate that the employer's job requirements reflected a belief that the applicants were sub… - holding that the phrase “substantially limits” is “properly read as requiring that a person be presently-not potentially or hypothetically-substantially limited in order to demonstrate a disability. A ‘disability’ exists only where an impairment ‘substantially limits’ a major … - reasoning that an “approach [that] would often require courts and employers to speculate about a person’s condition and would, in many cases, force them to make a disability determination based on general information about how an uncorrected impairment usually affects individu… - stating that "there may be some conceptual difficulty in defining 'major life activities' to include work, for it seems ‘to argue in a circle to say that one is excluded, for instance, by reason of [an impairment, from working with others] ... then that exclusion constitutes a… ## Opinion text Justice Breyer, dissenting. We must draw a statutory line that either (1) will include within the category of persons authorized to bring suit under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 some whom Congress may not have wanted to protect (those who wear ordinary eyeglasses), or (2) will exclude from the threshold category those whom Congress certainly did want to protect (those who successfully use corrective devices or medicines, such as hearing aids or prostheses or medicine for epilepsy). Faced with this dilemma, the statute’s language, structure, basic purposes, and history require us to choose the former statutory line, as Justice Stevens (whose opinion I join) well explains. I would add that, if the more generous choice of threshold led to too many lawsuits that ultimately proved *514 without merit or otherwise drew too much time and attention away from those whom Congress clearly sought to protect, there is a remedy. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), through regulation, might draw finer definitional lines, excluding some of those who wear eyeglasses (say, those with certain vision impairments who readily can find corrective lenses), thereby cabining the overly broad extension of the statute that the majority fears. The majority questions whether the EEOC could do so, for the majority is uncertain whether the EEOC possesses typical agency regulation-writing authority with respect to the statute’s definitions. See ante, at 479-480. The majority poses this question because the section of the statute, 42 U. S. C. § 12116 , that says the EEOC “shall issue regulations” also says these regulations are “to carry out this sub- chapter” (namely, §12111 to §12117, the employment sub-chapter); and the section of the statute that contains the three-pronged definition of “disability” precedes “this sub-chapter,” the employment subehapter, to which § 12116 specifically refers. (Emphasis added.) Nonetheless, the employment subchapter, i. e., “this sub-chapter,” includes other provisions that use the defined terms, for example a provision that forbids “diseriminat[ing] against a qualified individual with a disability because of the disability.” § 12112(a). The EEOC might elaborate, through regulations, on the meaning of “disability” in this last-mentioned provision, if elaboration is needed in order to “carry out” the substantive provisions of “this subchapter.” An EEOC regulation that elaborated on the meaning of this use of the word “disability” would fall within the scope both of the basic definitional provision and also the substantive provisions of “this” later subchapter, for the word “disability” appears in both places. There is no reason to befieve that Congress would have wanted to deny the EEOC the power to issue such a regulation, at least if the regulation is consistent with the earlier *515 statutory definition and with the relevant interpretations by other enforcement agencies. The physical location of the definitional section seems to reflect only drafting or stylistic, not substantive, objectives. And to pick and choose among which of “this subchapter['s]” words the EEOC has the power to explain would inhibit the development of law that coherently interprets this important statute. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433852. Public record. Not legal advice.