692
Scalia, J., dissenting
government entities, and Title III covers discrimination by places of public accommodation. Title II is irrelevant to this case. Title I protects only "employees" of employers who have 15 or more employees, §§ 12112(a), 12111(5)(A). It does not protect independent contractors. See, e. g., Birchem v. Knights of Columbus, 116 F. 3d 310, 312-313 (CA8 1997); cf. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co. v. Darden, 503 U. S. 318, 322- 323 (1992). Respondent claimed employment discrimination under Title I, but the District Court found him to be an independent contractor rather than an employee.
Respondent also claimed protection under § 12182 of Title III. That section applies only to particular places and persons. The place must be a "place of public accommodation," and the person must be an "individual" seeking "enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations" of the covered place. § 12182(a). Of course a court indiscriminately invoking the "sweeping" and "expansive" purposes of the ADA, ante, at 675, 680, could argue that when a place of public accommodation denied any "individual," on the basis of his disability, anything that might be called a "privileg[e]," the individual has a valid Title III claim. Cf. ante, at 677. On such an interpretation, the employees and independent contractors of every place of public accommodation come within Title III: The employee enjoys the "privilege" of employment, the contractor the "privilege" of the contract.
For many reasons, Title III will not bear such an interpretation. The provision of Title III at issue here (§ 12182, its principal provision) is a public-accommodation law, and it is the traditional understanding of public-accommodation laws that they provide rights for customers. "At common law, innkeepers, smiths, and others who made profession of a public employment, were prohibited from refusing, without good reason, to serve a customer." Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc., 515 U. S. 557, 571 (1995) (internal quotation marks omitted). See also
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