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Supreme Court limits disabilities law in unanimous decision

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A unanimous Supreme Court Tuesday ruled an auto assembly line worker claiming she was disabled with carpal tunnel syndrome is not entitled to sue under a key disability law, because the impairment didn't prevent her from performing "any major life activity."

The ruling was a defeat for Ella Williams, an employee at Toyota's Georgetown, Kentucky, assembly plant, who had invoked the Americans with Disabilities Act to force Toyota to provide a job suited to her limitations.

An appeals court had agreed with Williams, but the Supreme Court reversed that decision.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing for the court, said Williams was not entitled to special treatment under the ADA because the law specifically states individuals must be unable to perform tasks associated with daily living.

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"Repetitive work with hands and arms extended at or above shoulder levels for extended periods is not an important part of most people's daily lives," O'Connor wrote. "Household chores, bathing and brushing one's teeth, in contrast, are among the types of manual tasks of central importance to people's daily lives."

The 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act guarantees equal treatment on the job and elsewhere for people whose disabilities "substantially limit" their ability to perform what the law calls "major life activities," such as caring for oneself.

Under a clause in the act, the provision states in part: "The term disability means, with respect to an individual ... a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of such individual."

The court reversed the opinion of the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and sent the Williams case back with instructions to reconsider it, according to The Associated Press.

RESOURCES Opinion: Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, Inc. v. Williams  (FindLaw document)

The ruling does not mean that anyone with carpal tunnel syndrome or similar partial disabilities is automatically excluded from protection by the ADA, the AP reported. But it probably will make such claims harder to prove, since the court makes clear that disability must affect a range of manual tasks or duties.

Williams and advocates for the disabled had argued that her case was emblematic of just the kind of discrimination the ADA was supposed to prevent.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups backed Toyota, according to The Associated Press. Several civil rights, legal and labor interests supported Williams said.

The case is Toyota v. Williams, 00-1089.