800
Opinion of the Court
The Fifth Circuit affirmed the District Court's grant of summary judgment. 120 F. 3d 513 (1997). The court wrote:
"[T]he application for or the receipt of social security disability benefits creates a rebuttable presumption that the claimant or recipient of such benefits is judicially estopped from asserting that he is a 'qualified individual with a disability.' " Id., at 518.
The Circuit Court noted that it was "at least theoretically conceivable that under some limited and highly unusual set of circumstances the two claims would not necessarily be mutually exclusive." Id., at 517. But it concluded that, because
"Cleveland consistently represented to the SSA that she was totally disabled, she has failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact rebutting the presumption that she is judicially estopped from now asserting that for the time in question she was nevertheless a 'qualified individual with a disability' for purposes of her ADA claim." Id., at 518-519.
We granted certiorari in light of disagreement among the Circuits about the legal effect upon an ADA suit of the application for, or receipt of, disability benefits. Compare, e. g., Rascon v. U S West Communications, Inc., 143 F. 3d 1324, 1332 (CA10 1998) (application for, and receipt of, SSDI benefits is relevant to, but does not estop plaintiff from bringing, an ADA claim); Griffith v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 135 F. 3d 376, 382 (CA6 1998) (same), cert. pending, No. 97-1991; Swanks v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, 116 F. 3d 582, 586 (CADC 1997) (same), with McNemar v. Disney Store, Inc., 91 F. 3d 610, 618-620 (CA3 1996) (applying judicial estoppel to bar plaintiff who applied for disability benefits from bringing suit under the ADA), cert. denied, 519 U. S. 1115 (1997), and Kennedy v. Applause, Inc., 90 F. 3d 1477, 1481-1482 (CA9 1996) (declining to apply judi-
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