Plaintiff’s Night Blindness Ruled an ADA Disability

Takeaway: This case serves as a reminder that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) favors broad coverage, an employee’s burden for establishing a disability is rather low, and an individual does not have to be entirely unable to perform a major life activity to qualify as a person with an ADA disability. The case also shows an accommodation request can be made in good faith and support a retaliation claim, even if an employee also has other reasons, separate from their disability, for making the request.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the plaintiff presented sufficient evidence to establish that her night blindness and asthma qualified as disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and that she was retaliated against for requesting a reasonable accommodation. 

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In July 2020, the plaintiff began working for the Shelby County Health Department as a contact tracer during the COVID-19 pandemic, and later as an environmental inspector, a position that required some nighttime driving. Her duties included delivering food and groceries to individuals in quarantine at a local motel, a location she felt was unsafe. Although the plaintiff initially managed to fulfill her job’s night-driving requirements, her ability to see at night deteriorated over time. 

On Oct. 4, 2021, the plaintiff was assigned to a solo night shift, which she objected to due to her night blindness and safety concerns. She offered to provide a doctor’s note and documented her protest in an email to her supervisor, which highlighted past criminal activity at the motel. Her schedule was changed to a daytime shift, but she was ultimately terminated on Oct. 11, 2021, for reasons including insubordination and attendance issues. 

In October 2022, after filing a charge with the Tennessee Human Rights Commission, the plaintiff brought three ADA claims against the county: 1) discrimination based on her night blindness, 2) retaliation based on her request for an accommodation for her night blindness, and 3) failure to accommodate her asthma. The jury found for the plaintiff on all three claims, which the county timely appealed, primarily arguing that the plaintiff did not have an ADA disability and that the evidence did not support the jury’s verdict. 

The 6th Circuit found that the evidence was sufficient for the jury to reasonably conclude that the plaintiff’s night blindness substantially limited her ability to see, thus qualifying as a disability under the ADA. The court reasoned that whether an impairment is substantially limiting “is assessed by comparing the individual’s abilities to those of the general population” and that “the required level of functional limitation to qualify as an impairment under the ADA is rather low.” 

The court concluded that driving at night is inherently dependent on the ability to see, and seeing is a major life activity that the ADA expressly recognizes. The court was not swayed by the county’s argument that the plaintiff’s occasional need to drive at night precluded a finding of disability and cautioned that “[t]he ADA does not require an individual to be entirely unable to perform a major life activity to qualify as disabled.” 

The 6th Circuit also upheld the jury’s finding that the county unlawfully retaliated against the plaintiff by terminating her just days after she requested a reasonable accommodation. The county argued that the plaintiff’s request for an accommodation to avoid driving at night was not made in good faith because her concern was about crime at the motel, not night blindness. The court rejected this argument and held that “a jury could reasonably conclude that [the plaintiff’s] request was grounded in a concern about her ability to drive safely at night, even if she was also concerned about crime and personal safety.”  

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The 6th Circuit also held that the jury reasonably concluded that the plaintiff’s asthma constituted a disability under the ADA and that the county failed to accommodate her asthma. The county argued that the plaintiff’s asthma was not a disability as her symptoms were not constant or severely symptomatic, and that she was able to control her asthma with medication. The court was not persuaded and reasoned that the “ADA does not require a condition to be permanent or continuously symptomatic to qualify as a disability” and that an ADA analysis “must be made without regard to whether medication can ameliorate the condition.”

Edwards v. Shelby County, Tenn., 6th Cir., No. 24-5730 (Nov. 7, 2025). 

Elisabeth Bassani is an attorney with Duane Morris in Philadelphia.