[1][2] Twins Karen Sutton and Kimberly Hinton suffered from severe myopia.

They applied to United Air Lines to be commercial airline pilots, but were rejected by the company due to their uncorrected vision being worse than 20/100.

The District Court dismissed the complaint, partially holding that the plaintiffs could not be considered “disabled” because their impairment could be fully corrected.

[6] In a 7–2 decision delivered by Justice O’Connor, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, holding that “the determination of whether an individual is disabled should be made with reference to measures that mitigate the individual's impairment, including, in this instance, eyeglasses and contact lenses.”[7] Prior to the Sutton decision, courts were divided on whether ameliorative effects of mitigating measures should be taken into consideration when determining whether an impairment is a disability.

[8] The ADA Amendments Act was passed in 2008 in response to controversial Supreme Court decisions, including Sutton and Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, Inc. v. Williams, that narrowed the definition of disability under the ADA.