The United States Supreme Court applied the Sutton analysis in the companion case of Murphy v. U.P.S. Murphy was a mechanic for U.P.S. As part of his job, he was required to drive the trucks which were brought in for service. To do this, he had to have a commercial truck drivers license and meet Department of Transportation (DOT) medical standards. He could not do this because he had hypertension and even with medication it was higher than the DOT standard. The court found, however, that this hypertension did not affect any significant life activities. As with Sutton, the fact that plaintiff could work as a mechanic, just not for UPS, did not meet the standard for interfering with the life activity of working. The court thus found that plaintiff was not disabled and could not sue under the ADA.

Murphy is more troubling than Sutton in that hypertension that exceeds DOT standards even with medication can interfere with many of plaintiff's life functions. If HIV was a disability in Bragdon because it interfered with the decision to have children in a plaintiff who said she never wanted children, it would seem that the cardio-vascular damage caused by inadequately treatable hypertension would interfere with plaintiff's ability to live a natural life span and be free of many diseases. The court might have ignored this because it was not properly developed by plaintiff's petition. The plaintiff also failed to raise his strongest issue: whether driving trucks (and thus needing DOT certification) is an essential job function for a mechanic.