New EEOC guidance seen as helpful, but not decisive.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) concluded that a person who applies for disability benefits does not forfeit his rights to claim employment discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Judges are not obligated to follow the EEOC opinion and are likely to continue to dismiss ADA claims if patients said they were disabled when applying for benefits. To be eligible for Social Security benefits, a person must claim to be unable to work. To be a qualified individual with a disability under the ADA, the person must be able to work with or without reasonable accommodation. The EEOC states that an application for benefits is not necessarily inconsistent with a claim that a person is a qualified individual with a disability under the ADA because the statute's standards are fundamentally different from those of disability benefits programs. Because of these differences, courts should not summarily dismiss ADA claims, but should instead conduct individual analyses.