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The Employer Handbook Blog
Social Security Said He Can’t Work. His Lawsuit Said He Could. Guess Which One the Court Believed.
An employee told Social Security it was “impossible” for him to work, then filed an ADA lawsuit claiming he could perform his job with accommodations. The court tossed it on summary judgment.
TL;DR: A truck driver with Parkinson’s disease applied for total Social Security disability benefits, swearing under penalty of perjury it was “impossible” to work. He then sued his employer for ADA discrimination, hostile work environment, retaliation, and wrongful termination. The Eighth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the employer, holding the employee failed to explain the contradiction between his SSA representations and his claim that he was a qualified individual who could work with accommodations.
From Informal Accommodations to a Formal Unraveling
The employee drove trucks out of South Dakota from 2017 to 2021. Diagnosed with Parkinson’s in late 2018, the employer accommodated him informally for over two years: lighter loads, no ladder climbing, a five-day workweek ending by 1:00 p.m., and trailer washouts handled by a third party.
A new terminal manager arrived in 2021 and formalized those accommodations. But friction followed. The employee was disciplined for running a stop sign and for a hauling infraction, the same one that earned a non-disabled coworker the same punishment. He reported “targeting and harassment.” HR investigated and found the concerns unsubstantiated. The manager told the employee he needed to do things “his way” or he’d get rid of him “one way or another.”
In August, the employee cleared out his truck, told a coworker he “was done with this F’ing place,” and didn’t come back. The employer accepted his resignation. The employee says he was fired. The court granted summary judgment to the employer, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed.
“Impossible to Work” and “Qualified Individual” Don’t Fit in the Same Sentence
Eleven days after walking off the job, the employee applied for total Social Security disability benefits. Under penalty of perjury, he stated it was “impossible” for him to work because he couldn’t “control [his] right hand, arm, right leg & foot” and reported “hallucinations & delusions” from his medication. The SSA approved his claim, finding him disabled as of August 7.
Applying for Social Security disability doesn’t automatically kill an ADA suit. The Supreme Court said as much in Cleveland v. Policy Management Systems Corp. But the employee here didn’t just claim a disability. He made specific factual representations that working was “impossible.” Under Cleveland, he needed to explain that contradiction. He never did.
His hostile work environment claim failed too. A smirk, unwanted afterhours phone calls, and discipline for actual safety violations are, in the court’s words, “ordinary tribulations of the workplace.” Retaliation failed because the four-month gap between protected activity and termination wasn’t close enough on its own to establish causation. And South Dakota doesn’t recognize a public policy exception for disability-based wrongful termination, so that claim hit a dead end.
This case gives employers a concrete tool. When an ADA plaintiff has also applied for Social Security disability, the specific language in that application, not just the fact of the filing, could be the most important evidence you have at summary judgment.
The Employer’s ADA Defense Playbook After This Ruling
SSA applications are discovery gold, but only when the language is specific
The legal framework lets employees claim Social Security disability and sue under the ADA at the same time. But factual representations, like calling work “impossible,” are different from legal conclusions about disability status. Discovery should focus on what the employee actually wrote in the SSA application, not just whether one was filed.
Parallel discipline neutralizes harassment claims faster than any brief
The employee was disciplined for a hauling violation, but a non-disabled coworker got the same punishment for the same infraction. That consistency killed the hostile work environment argument. When the same rules apply to everyone and you can prove it, routine discipline is very hard to recast as disability harassment.
Informal accommodations are a ticking clock
The employer here moved from informal to formal accommodations when the new manager arrived. That generated documentation of exactly what was approved and what was denied. Without it, this case becomes a credibility fight about what the employee was entitled to. If your company is running informal accommodations right now, formalize them before a dispute forces the issue.
The court didn’t break new ground here. It just reminded everyone that when you swear under penalty of perjury that you can’t work, a federal court is going to take you at your word.