Let them eat cake: Diabetes and the Americans with disabilities act after Sutton

On June 22, 1999. the Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision interpr eting the Title I employment protections of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In Sutton v. United Airlines, Inc., it ruled that an employee i s considered disabled only after accounting for the mitigating measures tha t the employee has taken to alleviate the symptoms of her disability. In th is note, David Olsky examines the potential ramifications of this decision for diabetics, a group specifically mentioned in both the legislative histo ry of the act and the Sutton opinion. He argues that this decision places d iabetic employees in a Catch-22: they must either demonstrate that they are disabled even after they take insulin land thus, likely unqualified for th e job), or have their discrimination suits thrown out of court on a Rule 12 (b)(6) motion. He further argues that the decision will significantly weake n the ADA ban on pre-examination medical inquiries because an employer will now be able to ascertain whether an employee has "well-controlled" diabete s without violating Title I. He concludes by providing recommendations for the judiciary and legal strategies for diabetic plaintiffs.