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00-1759 DeVito v. Chicago Park District, et al.

By: dmc-admin//November 5, 2001//

00-1759 DeVito v. Chicago Park District, et al.

By: dmc-admin//November 5, 2001//

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“The doctrine of judicial estoppel is not strictly applicable here, because DeVito obtained benefits upon a claim of total disability without suing for them. But the cases we cited after ‘see also,’ together with our decision in Wilson v. Chrysler Corp., 172 F.3d 500, 504-05 (7th Cir. 1999), hold (with or without using the term ‘judicial estoppel’) that an ADA plaintiff may be estopped by an inconsistent representation made to his employer to obtain benefits. These cases make perfectly good sense. A false representation that reasonably induces detrimental reliance is a classic basis for estoppel, and there is no reason why the doctrine should not be available to employers sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act as it is to other defendants. It is not as if the doctrine of judicial estoppel were something special, something unrelated to “ordinary” estoppel, and perhaps therefore something available in cases to which the general principles of estoppel would not apply. The only thing special about judicial estoppel is that the misrepresentation is made to a court.

“Since different statutes define total disability differently, the employee will sometimes be able to explain away the apparent inconsistency of his positions; but not here. The park district was entitled to rely on the plaintiff’s implicit representation (implicit in his behavior in his light-duty job answering the phone) that he could work no more than two or three hours a day and on his explicit representation that his condition had not improved since the original injury.”

Affirmed.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Andersen, J., Posner, J.

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