Costner v. United States

The 1983 federal court case that became a landmark ruling in the battle for equal rights for the disabled, including the deaf, was brought by Sam Costner, a 30-year-old truck driver in Texas who had been fired by a large trucking concern when it discovered that Costner was epileptic. Diagnosed with epilepsy at age 15 years after fracturing his skull in a fall from a tree, Costner had long controlled the seizures through a strict regimen of medication and had gone more than 20 years without a seizure. During 15 of those years he had been a licensed commercial truck driver, which had qualified him to drive trucks across the state. He had an exemplary driving record and had moved large cargo routinely and without ...