Legal disability

“ Applications of the same character have occasionally been made by per- sons under twenty-one years of age, and have always been denied upon the same ground that they are not bound by their contracts, being under a legal disability in that regard.
Until such disability shall be removed by legislation, the court regards itself powerless to grant your application. ”

“ It has no more authority to ingraft that disability upon the statute than a disability arising from sickness, surprise, or inevitable accident, which might prevent a claimant from suing within the time prescribed. Appellant's claim, if any he has or had, accrued, within the meaning of the statute, when the government came under a legal obligation to pay the amount thereof. In other words, it accrued against the government when, had the transaction recited in the petition occurred with a citizen, it would have accrued against that citizen. ”

“ The person under disability may lack legal power (which is the sense in which the term disability is used in the Hohfeld System, [27] ) but may there not be a disability, also, because of the existence of duty?
3. Like the table of ‘opposites,’ the category of ‘correlatives,’ ‘immunity’—‘disability,’ is a novelty. While it is logically incomplete, as it seems to us, in not including under disability the presence of duty as well as the absence of power, it may be objected to for the more important reason that, as limited, it is juristically of no consequence. ”

“ Often, complex legal issues are involved, including classification of the claimant's alleged disability or his or her prior work experience within the Secretary's guidelines or "grids" used for determining claimant disability. See, e.g., Cole v. Secretary of Health and Human Services, 820 F.2d 768, 772-773 (C.A.6, 1987) . Deviation from the court's remand order in the subsequent administrative proceedings is itself legal error, subject to reversal on further judicial review. ”

“ The more problematic case is that of an individual who has a vocationally relevant disability--an impairment such as blindness or paralysis that limits a major human capability, such as seeing or walking. In the common case in which such an impairment interferes with the individual's ability to perform up to the standards of the workplace, or increases the cost of employing him, hiring and firing decisions based on the impairment are not "discriminatory" in a sense closely analogous to employment discrimination on racial grounds. ”

“ These are questionable interpretations both of "reasonable" and of "undue hardship." To "accommodate" a disability is to make some change that will enable the disabled person to work. An unrelated, inefficacious change would not be an accommodation of the disability at all. ”

“ March 9, 1918, in pursuance of the authorization contained in the War Risk Insurance Act, [4] the director of the Bureau ruled (T.D. 20 W.R.) : 'Any impairment of mind or body which renders it impossible for the disabled person to follow continuously any substantially gainful occupation shall be deemed * * * to be total disability. ”

“ It is undoubtedly a general principle, that when a statute of limitation has begun to run, a disability to sue subsequently intervening does not stop its running, even though the disability be one of those expressly recognized in the statute itself. ”

“ The primary motivation for the inclusion of misperceptions of disabilities in the statutory definition was that "society's accumulated myths and fears about disability and diseases are as handicapping as are the physical limitations that flow from actual impairment." ”

“ No covered entity shall discriminate against a qualified individual with a disability because of the disability of such individual in regard to job application procedures, the hiring, advancement, or discharge of employees, employee compensation, job training, and other terms, conditions, and privileges of employment. ”

“ In most of the state statutes of limitation the clauses of exception or provisos in favor of persons laboring under disabilities employ terms equivalent to those used in the English statute, expressly limiting the exception to cases of disability existing when the cause of action accrues. ”

“ It may not be assumed that occasional work for short periods by one generally disabled because of impairment of mind or body does as a matter of law negative total permanent disability. But it is plain that work done may be such as conclusively to negative total permanent disability at an earlier time. ”

“ If there are medically determinable diseases or impairments that should be considered disabling because of comparable severity to those affecting adults, the children suffering from them should claim disability, make their case before the Secretary, and take the case to court if their claims are rejected. ”

“ And, further, when any person shall be under any such disability at the time at which his right to make an entry or bring an action shall have first accrued, and shall depart this life without having ceased to be under any such disability, no time to make an entry, or to bring an action, beyond the fifteen years next after the right of such person shall have first accrued, or the ten years next after the period of his death, shall be allowed by reason of any disability of any other person. ”

“ The employer must be willing to consider making changes in its ordinary work rules, facilities, terms, and conditions in order to enable a disabled individual to work. The difficult term is "reasonable." The plaintiff in our case, a paraplegic, argues in effect that the term just means apt or efficacious. An accommodation is reasonable, she believes, when it is tailored to the particular individual's disability. A ramp or lift is thus a reasonable accommodation for a person who like this plaintiff is confined to a wheelchair. ”

“ Enough for present purposes that the disability has its roots in a principle more nearly ultimate than either waiver or estoppel, the principle that no one shall be permitted to found any claim upon his own inequity or take advantage of his own wrong. ”

“ Petitioner advances no credible basis for confining major life activities to those with a public, economic, or daily aspect. In the absence of any reason to reach a contrary conclusion, we agree with the Court of Appeals' determination that reproduction is a major life activity for the purposes of the ADA.
3 The final element of the disability definition in subsection (A) is whether respondent's physical impairment was a substantial limit on the major life activity she asserts. The Rehabilitation Act regulations provide no additional guidance. ”

“ Campbell, 461 U.S., at 460, 103 S.Ct., at 1953 ("The regulations recognize that certain impairments are so severe that they prevent a person from pursuing any gainful work. . . . A claimant who establishes that he suffers from one of these impairments will be considered disabled without further inquiry. . . . If a claimant suffers from a less severe impairment, the Secretary must determine whether the claimant retains the ability to [work] ") .
When the Secretary developed the child-disability listings, he set their medical criteria at the same level of severity as that of the adult listings. ”

“ Having regard to those provisions and to the general purpose which the act discloses with respect to rights of recovery when the injury does not result in death, we see no escape from the conclusion that the statute contemplates that the employer is to have the same control over the institution of an action for wrongful death, the compromise and settlement of the claim, and the distribution of the proceeds, as he is given in unambiguous language in the case where the injury results only in disability. ”

“ For purposes of subparagraph (A) , an individual shall be determined to be under a disability only if his physical or mental impairment or impairments are of such severity that he is not only unable to do his previous work but cannot, considering his age, education, and work experience, engage in any other kind of substantial gainful work which exists in the national economy. ”

“ With today's signing of the landmark Americans for Disabilities Act, every man, woman, and child with a disability can now pass through once-closed doors into a bright new era of equality, independence, and freedom. ”

“ It applies with greater strictness to conduct towards persons under disability, and imposes the obligation as a matter of law, not mere sentiment, at least to refrain from any affirmative action that might result in injury to them. ”

“ If the insured made good his claim, the decree establishing his right to the disability benefits, and to the continuance of the policies in force during the period of the proved disability, would be none the less final and conclusive as to the matters thus determined even though a different situation might later arise in the event of his recovery from that disability and his failure after that recovery to comply with the requirements of the policies. ”

“ A child is considered to be disabled "if he suffers from any . . . impairment of comparable severity" to one that would render an adult "unable to engage in any substantial gainful activity." 42 U.S.C. § 1382c (a) (3) (A) (1982 ed.) . The next paragraph of the statute elaborates on the adult disability standard, providing that an adult is considered unable to engage in substantial gainful activity, and is therefore disabled, if he is unable to do either his own past work or other work. ”

“ And, if such impairment were shown reasonably certain not to become less, it would constitute total permanent disability. Persons in sound health occasionally suffer illness requiring them to remain in bed for a time. It is not inaccurate to describe such illness as 'total disability' while it lasts. But, clearly it is not right to say that, if they remain sound but reasonably certain throughout life occasionally to have like periods of temporary illness, they are suffering from 'total permanent disability.' Such a construction would be unreasonable and contrary to the intention of Congress. ”

“ In the first place, the definition of total disability adopted by the companies is much stricter than that of the insurance departments of the railway brotherhoods. A typical insurance company's definition of total disability is incapacity for "prosecuting any and every kind of business pertaining to a regular occupation from the loss of both eyes, both hands, both feet, or one hand and one foot;" while partial disability is "the loss of one hand or one foot or any injury preventing the performance of one or more important daily duties pertaining to a regular occupation." ”

“ We fail to see why each child denied benefits because his impairment falls within the several categories of impairments that meet the statutory standard but do not qualify under the Secretary's listings-only approach should be compelled to raise a separate, as-applied challenge to the regulations, or why a facial challenge is not a proper response to the systemic disparity between the statutory standard and the Secretary's approach to child-disability claims.↑ The dissent, post, at 547, n. ”

“ The medical opinions that respondent became totally and permanently disabled before his policy lapsed are without weight. Clearly the experts failed to give proper weight to his fitness for naval air service or to the work he performed, and misinterpreted 'total permanent disability' as used in the policy and statute authorizing the insurance. ”

“ It is never permitted, not even to deprive the worst man of the humblest right. Our laws save the rights of all parties under disability. Who is under so great a disability as he who knows nothing, and can know nothing, of what is going on against him? Notwithstanding the constitution declares that “full faith and [Pg 348] credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state,” yet it has been held that a judgment obtained in another state, without notice, shall not prejudice the party against whom it was rendered. ”

“ Some are able to sustain themselves, without serious loss of productive power, against injury or disease sufficient totally to disable others. It cannot be said that injury or disease sufficient merely to prevent one from again doing some work of the kind he had been accustomed to perform constitutes the disability meant by the act, for such impairment may not lessen or affect his ability to follow other useful, and perchance more lucrative, occupations. ”

“ The Departments of Justice, Education, and Labor, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Social Security Administration shall work together and report to the Task Force by November 15, 1998, on their work to propose remedies to the prevention of people with disabilities from successfully exercising their employment rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 because of the receipt of monetary benefits based on their disability and lack of gainful employment. ”

“ Judges should not ignore what everyone knows, namely that legislation regulating business cannot be equated with legislation dealing with destitute, disabled, or elderly individuals. Thus, in assessing the lawfulness of the special disadvantages suffered here by workmen's compensation beneficiaries, the Court should consider the individual interests at stake. Federal disability payments, even when supplemented by other forms of disability compensation, provide families of disabled persons with the basic means for getting by. ”

“ The question of whether or not a statute is punitive ultimately depends upon whether the disability it imposes is for the purpose of vengeance or deterrence, or whether the disability is but an incident to some broader regulatory objective. ”

“ It need only be such a degree of disability from any cause as renders the claimant unable to earn a support by labor. It seems to me that the "support" here mentioned as one which can not be earned is a complete and entire support, with no diminution on account of the least impairment of physical or mental condition. If it had been intended to embrace only those who by disease or injury were totally unable to labor, it would have been very easy to express that idea, instead of recognizing, as is done, a "degree" of such inability. ”