Court limits disability rights for workers

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that the federal government does not owe financial subsidies to people whose physical or mental disabilities allow them to do only jobs that no longer exist.

The court ruled in the case of a disabled former elevator operator who applied for federal Social Security disability payments after her employer installed new elevators and eliminated her job in 1995.

Pauline Thomas had heart and back ailments, among other health problems. Poor health had already forced Thomas to change jobs once – from housekeeping to running an old, manual elevator at the Hudson County administration building in Jersey City, N.J.

Thomas did not claim she was physically unable to perform her last job – the standard disability claim. Instead, she argued that technology has all but abolished her last occupation, and she could not do anything else.

The government denied Thomas’ claim, but the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals eventually ruled in her favor. The Supreme Court reversed that action in a short, matter-of-fact ruling written by Justice Antonin Scalia. It was the court’s first ruling of the term that began last month.

The Social Security Administration, or SSA, has the authority to deny Thomas’ claim, even though the wording of the federal Social Security law is not precise in cases such as hers, Scalia wrote.

“It is true that, under the SSA’s interpretation, a worker with severely limited capacity who has managed to find easy work in a declining industry could be penalized for his troubles if the job later disappears,” Scalia wrote for the court.

It is also true, however, that such workers could “simply refuse to return to their jobs, even though those jobs remain open and available, and thus draw disability benefits,” the court said.

The question is not whether the government decision can have “undesirable results in some instances,” the court said, “but rather, in light of the alternatives, the (decision) is reasonable.”

The case is Barnhart v. Thomas, 02-763.