Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

In the case of Tarquinio v. Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (No. 24-1432), decided by the Fourth Circuit on June 25, 2025, the court addressed whether an employer had a duty under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to accommodate an employee who refused to provide medical documentation supporting her request for a COVID-19 vaccine exemption.

In Stanley v. City of Sanford, Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court held a disabled former employee who neither “holds” nor “desires” a job is not a “qualified individual” under the ADA and, thus, cannot sue for disability discrimination following her employer’s revocation of retiree health benefits. 

The Supreme Court of the United States recently granted certiorari in Stanley v. City of Sanford, Florida—a consequential case about whether the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) covers former employees.  The case has practical significance for employers. 

While the intent of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act was to improve equality of access to goods and services offered by places of public accommodation, the Plaintiffs’ bar has seized on the law to recruit serial litigants—also known as “professional plaintiffs” or “paid testers”—to repeatedly sue businesses for minor, technical violations without actually seeking to purchase anything at all.