Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-06-07134/USCOURTS-caDC-06-07134-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 17, 2007 Decided December 4, 2007 

No. 06-7133 

CAROLYN SINGH,

APPELLANT/CROSS-APPELLEE

v. 

GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

AND HEALTH SCIENCES, ET AL., 

APPELLEES/CROSS-APPELLANTS

Consolidated with 

06-7134 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 03cv01681) 

Bruce Fein argued the cause and filed the briefs for 

appellant/cross-appellee. 

Carol A. Lafond argued the cause for amicus curiae the 

National Disability Rights Network in support of crossappellee. With her on the brief were John M. Nonna and 

Richard J. Cairns. 

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Henry Morris, Jr., argued the cause and filed the briefs 

for appellee/cross-appellant George Washington University 

School of Medicine and Health Sciences. 

Robert A. Burgoyne was on the brief for amici curiae

Association of American Medical Colleges, et al., in support 

of appellees. 

Before: GINSBURG, Chief Judge, and EDWARDS and 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judges. 

Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

WILLIAMS. 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge: Carolyn Singh was a 

medical student at George Washington University (“GW”) 

from 2000 until she was dismissed for academic reasons in 

2003. Singh later sued GW, saying that it had violated the 

Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) by failing to 

accommodate her alleged learning disabilities. 

Singh began her medical studies after a high school and 

undergraduate career that both parties describe as illustrious, 

despite Singh’s inferior performance—as she sees it—on 

timed multiple-choice tests as opposed to other means of 

assessment. Due in part to her poor performance on certain 

multiple-choice tests, such as the Medical College Admission 

Test (“MCAT”), she was admitted to a decelerated program at 

GW, with a reduced courseload and heightened standards for 

academic dismissal. There she received failing or 

unsatisfactory grades in several courses, based in part on 

multiple-choice examinations. A faculty committee 

recommended to the school’s dean, John Williams, that he 

dismiss her. Shortly thereafter Dr. Anne Newman, an 

independent professional psychologist chosen by Singh from a 

short list recommended by GW’s Disability Support Services, 

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diagnosed Singh with dyslexia and a mild disorder of 

processing speed, and recommended various accommodations 

to improve her performance. Singh communicated the 

diagnosis and a request for accommodations to Dean 

Williams, who shortly thereafter sent her a written notice of 

dismissal. 

After Singh brought suit, both sides moved for summary 

judgment as to whether she had a disability. The ADA 

defines disability as “a physical or mental impairment that 

substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of 

[an] individual.” 42 U.S.C. § 12102(2)(A). Thus, a plaintiff 

“is disabled under the ADA if: (1) he suffers from an 

impairment; (2) the impairment limits an activity that 

constitutes a major life activity under the Act; and (3) the 

limitation is substantial.” Haynes v. Williams, 392 F.3d 478, 

482 (D.C. Cir. 2004). The district court granted Singh partial 

summary judgment on the issue of impairment, holding that 

she “suffers from some kind of mental impairment,” either “a 

learning disability” or a “psychiatric disorder such as 

depression.” Singh v. George Washington Univ., 368 F. Supp. 

2d 58, 63 (D.D.C. 2005). But it denied summary judgment 

for Singh or for GW on the issue of substantial limitation, 

which it reserved for trial. Id. at 63, 68. 

After a bench trial, the district court found that Singh had 

failed to prove that she was disabled under the ADA; it then 

entered judgment for GW. Singh v. George Washington Univ. 

Sch. of Med. & Health Scis., 439 F. Supp. 2d 8 (D.D.C. 2006). 

Singh appeals. GW cross-appeals, though it need not have, as 

it sought no change in the final judgment in its favor. Mass. 

Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Ludwig, 426 U.S. 479, 480-81 (1976) 

(per curiam); Freeman v. B & B Assocs., 790 F.2d 145, 150-

51 (D.C. Cir. 1986). In reality, GW seeks only affirmance of 

the judgment, either on the grounds of the district court’s 

latest opinion or on the basis of arguments that the district 

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court rejected in various interlocutory rulings. We find GW 

correct in two of these arguments. Although corrections in 

favor of the appellee would normally tend to support 

affirmance, we cannot affirm but must remand to the district 

court for reasons developed below. 

* * * 

GW objects to four adverse interlocutory rulings rendered 

at the summary judgment stage. It contends (1) that the 

district court chose the wrong comparison group by which to 

measure Singh’s “substantial limitation”; (2) that the court 

misidentified the relevant “major life activity”; (3) that 

Singh’s request to GW for reasonable modifications under 

Title III was untimely; and (4) that Singh is not “otherwise 

qualified” to attend GW, even with reasonable modifications 

to the University’s program. We resolve issues (1) and (2) in 

favor of GW, and issues (3) and (4) in favor of Singh. 

Substantial limitation. Singh argued below that she was 

substantially limited in the major life activity of learning as 

compared “with a population of similar age and education 

level,” or, alternatively, “with what [she] could achieve if she 

was either free of her learning disabilities or was provided 

reasonable accommodations.” Mem. P. & A. Supp. Pl.’s 

Cross Mot. Summ. J. & Opp’n Defs.’ Mot. Summ. J. (“Mem. 

P. & A.”) 6. On summary judgment, the district court held 

that “an ADA plaintiff can be substantially limited . . . based 

on comparisons of her success to others of comparable age 

and educational background.” 368 F. Supp. 2d at 67. Thus 

“[m]edical students, while in medical school, can only 

compare their test scores to their fellow students.” Id. GW 

argues that the proper standard is whether Singh’s limitation is 

substantial as compared to the average person in the general 

population. We agree with GW. 

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The ADA never defines the term “substantially limits.” 

Its plain text (as the district court notes) “never speaks of 

making a comparison.” Id. Yet “substantial[]” is an 

inherently relative term, one that demands some further 

standard of measure—as do the synonyms “‘considerable’ or 

‘to a large degree,’” offered by the Supreme Court in Toyota 

Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, Inc. v. Williams, 534 U.S. 

184, 196 (2002). In speaking of the major life activity of 

performing manual tasks, the Court required that an 

impairment “prevent[] or severely restrict[] the individual 

from doing activities that are of central importance to most 

people’s daily lives.” Id. at 198 (emphasis added). It added 

that the statutory text must “be interpreted strictly to create a 

demanding standard for qualifying as disabled.” Id. at 197. 

The Court’s language suggests a comparison to the 

general population, rather than to persons of elite ability or 

unusual experience. A restriction qualifies as “severe[]” only 

if it limits the impaired individual in the context of what 

“most people” do in their “daily lives.” Thus Wong v. Regents 

of the University of California, 410 F.3d 1052 (9th Cir. 2005), 

in applying Toyota Motor, asked “whether [plaintiff’s] 

impairment substantially limited his ability to learn as a 

whole, for purposes of daily living, as compared to most 

people,” not whether he could “keep up with a rigorous 

medical school curriculum.” Id. at 1065. Similarly, most 

Americans could not run a marathon, and few would regard 

someone who can run a marathon—but no further—as 

“severely restrict[ed]” in the major life activity of walking. 

Thus, an injured ultramarathoner, who could once run 100 

miles at a time, is not disabled by an impairment that forces 

him to quit after 26.2 miles, even though his limitation is 

substantial as compared to his unimpaired abilities or those of 

his erstwhile running partners. 

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The average-person criterion also appears inherent in 

Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc., 527 U.S. 471 (1999), which 

required the consideration of corrective measures (such as 

eyeglasses for the visually impaired) in assessing disability. 

“Because petitioners allege that with corrective measures their 

vision ‘is 20/20 or better’ . . . , they are not actually disabled 

within the meaning of the Act if the ‘disability’ determination 

is made with reference to these [corrective] measures.” Id. at 

481. In a case decided the same day, Albertson’s, Inc. v. 

Kirkingburg, 527 U.S. 555 (1999), the Court extended that 

principle to non-artificial offsetting measures, namely a 

vision-impaired person’s “learn[ing] to compensate for the 

disability by making subconscious adjustments to the manner

in which he sensed depth and perceived peripheral objects.” 

Id. at 565. The Court went on: “We see no principled basis 

for distinguishing between measures undertaken with artificial 

aids, like medications and devices, and measures undertaken, 

whether consciously or not, with the body’s own systems.” 

Id. at 565-66. Similarly, a plaintiff’s diligent study or high 

background intelligence may serve to mitigate the effects of a 

learning-related impairment and allow a high level of 

functioning. Yet measuring Singh’s limitations by comparison 

to her hypothetical achievements without impairment, to her 

fellow medical students, or to others of similarly elite 

educational background (individuals selected in part on the 

basis of their intelligence and dedication), would place the 

same mitigating factors on both sides of the comparison, 

rendering them effectively irrelevant. 

It is intuitively appealing to measure limitation by 

comparing the plaintiff’s condition impaired with her own 

condition, unimpaired. There is something poignant, in some 

cases even tragic, in the plight of a person cut off from 

exceptional achievement by some accident of birth or history. 

But the ADA is not addressed to that plight. Rather, it is 

designed to enable the disabled, as a group, to participate in 

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mainstream society. The statute notes that “historically, 

society has tended to isolate and segregate individuals with 

disabilities”; that “people with disabilities, as a group, occupy 

an inferior status in our society, and are severely 

disadvantaged socially, vocationally, economically, and 

educationally”; and that “individuals with disabilities are a 

discrete and insular minority who have been . . . relegated to a 

position of political powerlessness.” 42 U.S.C. § 12101(a)(2), 

(6), (7). Congress found that discrimination denies this group 

“the opportunity to compete on an equal basis . . . , and costs 

the United States billions of dollars in unnecessary expenses 

resulting from dependency and nonproductivity”; the ADA 

therefore seeks to offer the disabled “equality of opportunity, 

full participation, independent living, and economic selfsufficiency.” Id. § 12101(a)(8)-(9). A plaintiff who, despite 

an impairment, can participate in all major life activities at the 

level of the average person in the general population neither is 

denied “independent living and economic self-sufficiency,” 

nor burdens society with “dependency and nonproductivity,” 

nor falls within the kind of “isolate[d] and segregate[d]” 

minority described by the statute’s text. The ADA promotes 

equal opportunity for the disabled, but only after Toyota 

Motor’s “demanding standard” is met. 

This understanding gains credence from its adoption by 

executive agencies purporting to define “substantially limits.” 

The ADA does not delegate authority to any agency to define 

“disability” or its component terms by regulation, see Sutton, 

527 U.S. at 479, yet both the Equal Employment Opportunity 

Commission (“EEOC”) and the Department of Justice 

(“DOJ”) have done so. The EEOC describes an individual as 

substantially limited if she is either “[u]nable to perform a 

major life activity that the average person in the general 

population can perform,” or “[s]ignificantly restricted as to the 

condition, manner or duration under which an individual can 

perform [the major life activity] as compared to the condition, 

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manner, or duration under which the average person in the 

general population can perform that same major life activity.” 

29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(j)(1)(i)-(ii). The DOJ similarly defines 

“substantially limited” as being “restricted as to the 

conditions, manner, or duration under which [the major life 

activity] can be performed in comparison to most people.” 28 

C.F.R., pt. 36, app. B. It illustrates this definition by noting 

that “[a] person who can walk for 10 miles continuously is not 

substantially limited in walking merely because, on the 

eleventh mile, he or she begins to experience pain, because 

most people would not be able to walk eleven miles without 

experiencing some discomfort.” Id. 

Without deciding what respect these regulations are due, 

see Sutton, 527 U.S. at 480, we note that the average-person 

standard is currently the law in all of our sister circuits to have 

addressed the matter, some of those circuits according a 

degree of deference (sometimes substantial) to the agency 

interpretations. See Wong, 410 F.3d at 1065; Ristrom v. 

Asbestos Workers Local 34 Joint Apprentice Comm., 370 F.3d 

763, 769 (8th Cir. 2004) (asking whether the plaintiff’s 

impairments “limit his ability to learn to a considerable or 

large degree as compared to the average person in the general 

population”); Palotai v. Univ. of Md. at Coll. Park, 38 F. 

App’x 946, 955 (4th Cir. 2002) (comparing the plaintiff to the 

“average person in the general population”); Emerson v. N. 

States Power Co., 256 F.3d 506, 511 (7th Cir. 2001) 

(employing the average-person standard in the context of 

learning); Bartlett v. N.Y. State Bd. of Law Exam’rs, 226 F.3d 

69, 81-82 (2d Cir. 2000) (“[T]he proper reference group is 

‘most people,’ not college freshmen.”); Gonzales v. Nat’l Bd. 

of Med. Exam’rs, 225 F.3d 620, 627 (6th Cir. 2000) (“[T]he 

ADA compares the performance of an individual who alleges 

a restriction in a major life activity to that of ‘most people.’”); 

Bowen v. Income Producing Mgmt. of Okla., Inc., 202 F.3d 

1282, 1287-88 (10th Cir. 2000) (noting that plaintiff was not 

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substantially limited in his ability to learn given that “even 

after his injury, [plaintiff] retained greater skills and abilities 

than the average person in general”); Bercovitch v. Baldwin 

Sch., Inc., 133 F.3d 141, 156 (1st Cir. 1998) (holding that, 

because a student’s “achievement remained consistently 

above average,” the plaintiffs had not “met their burden of 

showing a probability of success that [he] suffered a 

substantial limitation of a major life activity”); Soileau v. 

Guilford of Maine, Inc., 105 F.3d 12, 15-16 (1st Cir. 1997) 

(“[Limitation] is to be measured in relation to normalcy, or, in 

any event, to what the average person does.”). 

In contrast, the district court relied on and extended the 

EEOC’s separate definition of substantial limitation in the 

purported major life activity of working,1 a definition that 

compares individuals to “the average person having 

comparable training, skills and abilities” in their ability “to 

perform a class of jobs or a broad range of jobs in various 

classes.” 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(j)(3)(i). The district court found 

this “more specific” comparison to be “more applicable,” and 

it therefore read the EEOC’s regulations to require 

comparisons “to people of similar age and educational 

background” in the activity of learning as well. 368 F. Supp. 

2d at 66. This was a misreading of the regulations. The 

EEOC includes learning among a list of many major life 

activities, 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(i), and applies the comparabletraining standard only to working. We are reluctant to extend 

the EEOC’s comparable-training standard beyond the 

agency’s own regulations, especially in light of Toyota 

 

1

 Neither the Supreme Court, see Toyota Motor, 534 U.S. at 

200, nor this court, see Duncan v. Wash. Metro. Area Transit Auth., 

240 F.3d 1110, 1114 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (en banc), has yet decided 

whether working is a major life activity. 

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Motor’s observation that “[n]othing in the text of the [ADA], 

our previous opinions, or the regulations suggests that a classbased framework [of major life activity analysis] should apply 

outside the context of the major life activity of working.” 534 

U.S. at 200. 

Singh defends the district court’s comparison to those of 

“similar age and educational background” on the ground that 

it would be unreasonable to compare her to “newborns” and 

“centenarians.” Singh Reply Br. 23. But the statutory 

findings describe the disabled population as “increasing as the 

population as a whole is growing older,” 42 U.S.C. 

§ 12101(a)(1), which would be inconsistent with a definition 

of disability that controls for age. Moreover, an age-based 

comparison might have perverse consequences for the ADA’s 

application. If a 97-year-old woman with hip problems has 

difficulty walking, it would be strange to tell her that she 

walks at least as well as the average 97-year-old—that is, not 

well at all—and is therefore not disabled or entitled to 

reasonable accommodations. 

While we need not explore the ADA’s outer reaches to 

decide this case, it seems that the law may already provide 

sensible means of addressing extreme age or youth. For one 

thing, the medical definition of an impairment will frequently 

make reference to age; the mental development of a six-yearold is fine for six-year-olds, but not for their parents. For 

another, the ADA requires that the impairment be the 

effective cause of the plaintiff’s limitation; a newborn with a 

malformed foot cannot walk as well as the average person, but 

he is not disabled under the ADA, because even perfectly 

healthy newborns cannot walk. Thus, if a dyslexic sevenyear-old cannot learn as well as the average person, a court 

might begin by comparing his learning ability to that of the 

average seven-year-old, cf. Bercovitch, 133 F.3d at 156, using 

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the comparison to clarify how much limitation the impairment 

is responsible for.

Finally, we note that any measure of substantial limitation 

that might change based on a plaintiff’s particular educational 

environment—e.g., a comparison of “[m]edical students . . . to 

their fellow students,” Singh, 368 F. Supp. 2d at 67—would 

make disabled status vary with a plaintiff’s current career 

choices, and would fail to achieve the ADA’s additional 

purpose of providing “clear, strong, consistent, [and] 

enforceable standards” to address discrimination. 42 U.S.C. 

§ 12101(b)(2) (emphasis added). And comparing the impaired 

plaintiff with the counterfactual unimpaired plaintiff would 

pose a similar risk of inconsistency, as it would sometimes 

require the court to speculate on the degree to which the sort 

of compensating mechanisms alluded to in Albertson’s would 

have come into play in the absence of the impairment. 

Major life activity. In moving for summary judgment, 

Singh claimed to be substantially limited in the major life 

activity of learning. Mem. P. & A. 5-6. On its own motion, 

however, the district court held that the parties—by “citing 

grades and scores back and forth”—had “reduced the activity 

of learning to the activity of test taking.” 368 F. Supp. 2d at 

64. While the court did not resolve whether test-taking is 

“itself a major life activity” or merely “a crucial component of 

the major life activity of learning,” it concluded that “a 

plaintiff with an impairment that substantially limits her 

ability to perform on tests has an actionable ADA claim.” Id. 

While the district court rightly observed that tests are 

often the “gatekeepers to ever higher levels of learning,” id., 

its conclusion was nonetheless error. First, test-taking itself is 

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not a major life activity.2

 In Toyota Motor, the Supreme 

Court defined “major life activities” as “those activities that 

are of central importance to daily life,” including “such basic 

abilities as walking, seeing, and hearing,” 534 U.S. at 197; see 

also id. at 198 (adding that an impairment must “prevent[] or 

severely restrict[] the individual from doing activities that are 

of central importance to most people’s daily lives” (emphasis 

added)). 

Second, Toyota Motor requires a plaintiff’s limitation to 

be substantial in the context of the major life activity as a 

whole, and not that of a subclass within a major life activity. 

The petitioner there claimed to be disabled in “performing 

manual tasks” because she could not work with her arms at 

shoulder level for a substantial period of time. 534 U.S. at 

201. The Court, however, asked whether she could “perform 

the variety of tasks central to most people’s daily lives,” as 

opposed to the class of “tasks associated with her specific 

job.” Id. at 200-01. As noted above, Toyota Motor found 

such a “class-based framework” inappropriate “outside the 

context of the major life activity of working.” Id. at 200. 

Plainly picking a comparison activity presents a problem 

similar to that of picking a comparison group. Every 

subdivision invites parallel subdivisions; if a difficulty with 

timed multiple-choice tests qualifies, why not difficulties in 

every other element of the learning process? If a substantial 

limitation in any element of learning (and of every other 

recognized major life activity) were itself sufficient to show 

substantial limitation in a major life activity, the number of 

 

2

 Because in the trial court Singh claimed only a limitation in 

learning, we need not decide whether other subcomponents of 

learning, such as reading or “processing information,” constitute 

major life activities. 

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disabled would balloon far beyond the Court’s understanding 

of Congress’s intent. 

Though we reject the idea that test-taking per se is a 

major life activity (or, equivalently, a “crucial component” 

thereof as envisioned by the district court), plaintiff’s testtaking difficulties can obviously play a role in the 

“individualized assessment,” required by Toyota Motor, 534 

U.S. at 199; cf. id. at 200-01, of whether her limitation in the 

major life activity of learning is substantial. A plaintiff who is 

limited in only part of a major life activity—e.g., one who is 

severely nearsighted, or who can hear loud noises but not soft 

ones—may still be disabled under the ADA, but only if the 

limitation is substantial from the perspective of the major life 

activity as a whole. “The key obviously is the extent to which 

the impairment restricts the major life activity.” Knapp v. Nw. 

Univ., 101 F.3d 473, 481 (7th Cir. 1996). 

Timeliness. Discrimination under Title III includes “a 

failure to make reasonable modifications in policies, practices, 

or procedures . . . unless the entity can demonstrate that making 

such modifications would fundamentally alter the nature of 

[the public accommodation].” 42 U.S.C. § 12182(b)(2)(A)(ii). 

GW argues that Singh’s request for reasonable modifications 

was untimely, as she did not notify the school of her diagnosis 

or disability until a faculty committee had already 

recommended her dismissal. It further argues that it had no 

duty to modify its program for Singh without notice of her 

disability. See Kaltenberger v. Ohio Coll. of Podiatric Med., 

162 F.3d 432, 437 (6th Cir. 1998); see also Crandall v. 

Paralyzed Veterans of Am., 146 F.3d 894, 897-98 (D.C. Cir. 

1998) (construing Title I); Wynne v. Tufts Univ. Sch. of Med., 

976 F.2d 791, 795 (1st Cir. 1992) (construing the Rehabilitation 

Act). 

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But Singh is not challenging GW’s actions prior to notice. 

She challenges GW’s actions after she informed the Dean of 

her diagnosis and requested modifications, when the 

University was in a position to respond. Singh, 368 F. Supp. 

2d at 70. Thus, we need not address the case of the plaintiff 

who, once ousted on terms applicable to a non-disabled 

person, knocks on the door anew to seek reinstatement under 

the ADA. 

While GW invokes a so-called “no second chance” 

doctrine to justify its refusal to accommodate Singh, see id. at 

70-71, its argument confuses the issue of timeliness with the 

underlying reasonableness of the plaintiff’s request. The 

precedential authorities cited by GW and amici relied on 

findings that the plaintiffs had failed to request any real 

accommodation, see Hill v. Kan. City Area Transp. Auth., 181 

F.3d 891, 894 (8th Cir. 1999); Siefken v. Arlington Heights, 65 

F.3d 664, 666 (7th Cir. 1995); Bugg-Barber v. Randstad US, 

L.P., 271 F. Supp. 2d 120 (D.D.C. 2003), that further 

accommodations would not have been of any use, see 

Southeastern. Cmty. Coll. v. Davis, 442 U.S. 397, 403 (1979); 

Zukle v. Regents of Univ. of Cal., 166 F.3d 1041, 1051 (9th 

Cir. 1999); Bercovitch, 133 F.3d at 154-55, that reasonable 

accommodations had already been advanced, see 

Kaltenberger, 162 F.3d at 436, or that the requested 

accommodations were unreasonable under the circumstances, 

see Powell v. Nat’l Bd. of Med. Exam’rs, 364 F.3d 79, 88 (2d 

Cir. 2004). None of these circumstances is found here. In 

particular, GW points to no major commitment of resources 

that would be wasted as a result of its having to consider 

Singh’s accommodation claim at the time she raised it. 

 “Otherwise qualified.” GW suggests as an alternative 

ground for affirmance that Singh is not “otherwise qualified” 

for GW’s medical school, arguing that even had she received 

her requested modifications, she would still be incapable of 

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completing her studies. We first note legal uncertainty as to 

whether a Title III plaintiff must be “otherwise qualified” in 

this sense. Title III of the ADA contains neither the phrase 

“otherwise qualified” nor “qualified individual,” but such 

phrases are in Titles I and II, as well as in the Rehabilitation 

Act. Compare 42 U.S.C. § 12182(a) (“No individual shall be 

discriminated against on the basis of disability in the full and 

equal enjoyment of the goods, services, . . . or accommodations 

of any place of public accommodation . . . .”), with id. 

§ 12112(a) (“No covered entity shall discriminate against a 

qualified individual with a disability . . . .”), id. § 12132 

(referring to a “qualified individual with a disability”), and 29 

U.S.C. § 794(a) (“No otherwise qualified individual with a 

disability . . . shall, solely by reason of her or his disability, 

. . . be subjected to discrimination . . . .”). Some courts have 

read an equivalent requirement into Title III. See Mershon v. 

St. Louis Univ., 442 F.3d 1069, 1076 (8th Cir. 2006); 

Bercovitch, 133 F.3d at 154-55; see also Kaltenberger, 162 

F.3d at 435. 

Because of a procedural point, however, we need not 

address the substantive legal issue. The district court granted 

partial summary judgment to Singh on whether she was 

otherwise qualified, 368 F. Supp. 2d at 68-69, and GW makes 

no claim that the ruling was erroneous on the record then 

before the court, consisting most importantly of the deposition 

of Singh’s expert witness, Dr. Newman. At trial Dr. Newman 

seemed uncertain on the issue, see Joint Appendix (“J.A.”) 

644-45, a wavering that GW characterizes as Singh’s “reopen[ing]” the issue of qualifications. GW Br. 37 n.10. GW 

offers no authority holding that a party may unwittingly forfeit 

the benefit of partial summary judgment through inartful 

questioning of a trial witness. Facts found on partial summary 

judgment are taken as established at trial. Fed. R. Civ. P. 

56(d). GW neither moved in the district court to vacate the 

partial summary judgment, cf. Teleflex, Inc. v. Ficosa N. Am. 

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Corp., 299 F.3d 1313, 1321 (Fed. Cir. 2002), nor otherwise 

gave effective notice that it sought to disestablish the prior 

finding. A trial court’s reopening of such an issue without 

notice to the parties is error, and reversible error if it causes 

substantial prejudice. Leddy v. Std. Drywall, Inc., 875 F.2d 

383, 386-87 (2d Cir. 1989). It is plainly impermissible for a 

party to lie low and then, the record having closed, label the 

testimony a “reopening.” 

* * * 

As we ordinarily review factual findings only under the 

deferential standard of clear error, it might seem that with GW 

having scored wins on two material legal issues, it would be 

easy to affirm the district court’s decision in its favor. But 

when the trial court’s route to its findings features selfcontradiction and confusion, we may not so defer. Lyles v. 

United States, 759 F.2d 941, 944 (D.C. Cir. 1985). In such a 

case, “the appropriate disposition of the case is to vacate the 

district court’s judgment and remand for further factfinding.” 

United States v. Wragge, 893 F.2d 1296, 1299 (11th Cir. 

1990) (per curiam). The opinion below focused on the 

elements of impairment and substantial limitation, as do we. 

Impairment. In its discussion of impairment, the district 

court repeated its previous finding that Singh had “an 

impairment of some sort” at the time of her diagnosis, whether 

a learning disability or depression. 439 F. Supp. 2d at 13 

(citing 368 F. Supp. 2d at 63). The court then doubted 

whether Singh had a learning disability, especially in light of 

her prior academic success: “Had she the disability [i.e., 

impairment] that she claims to have, her achievement should 

have been more consistently impaired [i.e., limited].” Id. Yet 

the court also rejected the depression hypothesis, stating that 

Singh “offered no evidence that her poor performance was 

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due to depression, and in fact disputed whether she was ever 

depressed.” Id. at 14. In the end, the court flatly “decline[d] 

to make a finding as to her mental condition.” Id. at 15 n.7. 

We cannot tell whether the court fully reversed its earlier 

finding of impairment, thus ruling on the point in favor of 

GW, or retained some finding of impairment. 

Our review is made more difficult by the court’s failure to 

state important factual findings specially in its “Findings of 

Fact,” cf. Fed. R. Civ. P. 52(a), and by its intermixing of the 

legal standards of impairment with those of substantial 

limitation. For example, it doubted whether Singh’s “success 

in other reading and comprehending tasks . . . is consistent 

with a reading disorder,” adding in the next sentence that “[i]n 

any event, it is not consistent with a determination that the 

impairment substantially affects a major life activity.” 439 F. 

Supp. 2d at 13-14. 

The same problem infects the court’s refusal, “for two 

reasons,” to credit Singh’s primary evidence of impairment, 

her diagnosis by Dr. Newman. Id. at 15. First, it found Dr. 

Newman to lack experience in diagnosing learning 

disabilities, and implied that her testimony therefore “failed to 

prove that plaintiff’s difficulties are due to a learning 

disability.” Id. This statement could mean that Singh 

suffered no learning disorder at all (reading “disability” to 

mean impairment), or that if she did, her academic troubles 

were caused by other factors (a substantial limitation issue). 

Second, the court noted that “a mere diagnosis [of an 

impairment] is not sufficient to establish a disability under the 

ADA,” id. (footnote omitted)—which is true enough 

(assuming our bracketed insertion was intended), but the 

observation speaks only to the element of limitation, not 

impairment. Thus, we cannot be certain what findings the 

court would have made as to impairment had it addressed that 

issue independently. 

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Substantial limitation. The district court considered 

Singh’s evidence of substantial limitation “overwhelmingly 

anecdotal,” id., and gave it little weight, especially as 

compared to the testimony of GW’s expert witness, Dr. Rick 

Ostrander. Yet in doing so the court mischaracterized Dr. 

Ostrander’s testimony, to a degree that undermines the 

reliability of its findings. 

First, in opposition to Singh’s claim of particularly poor 

performance on multiple-choice tests, the court stated that Dr. 

Ostrander “did not perceive plaintiff’s record as reflecting 

glaring inconsistencies between multiple choice or reading 

tasks and tests in other areas or formats.” Id. at 15-16. Dr. 

Ostrander testified at length as to Singh’s performance on the 

Scholastic Aptitude Test (“SAT”), which he considered 

consistent with her intelligence, as measured by the Wechsler 

Adult Intelligence Scale (“WAIS”). J.A. 701-08, 711-13. 

Yet, though he speculated as to whether Singh’s MCAT 

scores were similarly consistent, J.A. 709-11, 713-14, he 

specifically refused to find either consistencies or 

inconsistencies in her record based upon her performance on 

any exams aside from the SAT and WAIS, citing insufficient 

data. J.A. 720-26, 728-31, 737-41, 745-46. Dr. Ostrander 

testified that the only “objective” data he or anyone could 

provide related to whether her SAT scores were consistent 

with her IQ as measured by the WAIS. J.A. 722-26, 739-41. 

Though the court’s phrase is literally true, it seems to turn a 

gap in Dr. Ostrander’s testimony into affirmative support for 

“consistency.” 

Second, the court described it as Dr. Ostrander’s 

“professional opinion that [Singh’s] performance worsened as 

she progressed into more competitive environments. As she 

became surrounded by smarter peers, he testified, it is not 

surprising that she would find herself having to work harder.” 

439 F. Supp. 2d at 16. These propositions are found nowhere 

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in Dr. Ostrander’s testimony. While Dr. Ostrander did note 

that medicine is an “incredibly demanding field,” J.A. 747, 

and that he considered Singh’s performance in the sciences 

particularly modest, J.A. 714, he never attempted to compare 

her class performance in different environments or over time. 

As we have explained, Dr. Ostrander testified that he could 

speak only to her results on the SAT and WAIS. 

Third, the court appeared to attribute to Dr. Ostrander the 

proposition that “based on her Scholastic Aptitude Test 

scores, [Singh’s] achievement in medical school was not 

necessarily inconsistent with her abilities.” 439 F. Supp. 2d at 

16. While Dr. Ostrander testified that Singh’s SAT and 

WAIS scores were consistent with each other, as noted above, 

he refused to compare her standardized test scores (or her 

innate abilities) with her performance on medical coursework. 

We do not know how the district court would have 

weighed Singh’s evidence against a proper understanding of 

Dr. Ostrander’s testimony. This invites a remand. Cf. 19 

Moore’s Federal Practice—Civil § 206.03[7] (“A factual 

finding will also be clearly erroneous . . . if it is based on a 

fundamental confusion of the facts as revealed by the 

record.”). 

* * * 

The judgment below is vacated, and the case is remanded 

to the district court for a determination of whether Singh is 

disabled under the legal standards described above. 

So ordered. 

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