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Volume 19, No. 1 - Winter 2011

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Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008:
Broader Protections for Individuals with Disabilities

Dan Lang and Dan Atkins
Disabilities Law Program, Community Legal Aid Society, Inc.

Community Legal Aid Society, Inc. of Delaware, CLASI Logo, in blue and white, with the scales of justice balanced in the center of a sheild, and the established date 1946 at the top of the logo. In 1990, with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Congress sent a powerful message to the country: discrimination by private and public entities against persons with disabilities would no longer be ignored. The ADA is composed of three main titles, each of which prohibits disability discrimination within a particular context. Title I addresses employers (generally employers with more than 15 employees), Title II extends to public entities (local and state governmental programs and services), and Title III reaches places of public accommodations (businesses open to the public such as stores, restaurants, doctor’s offices, and hotels). The ADA protects only certain people with disabilities (PWD)—those who have a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of their major life activities, those with a record of such impairment, or those who have been regarded as having such an impairment.

Although the ADA has been a major step forward for PWD, many consumers and advocates were concerned that the ADA’s definition of disability was too vague. They feared that narrow interpretations from courts could severely limit the number of PWD protected. Unfortunately, federal courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States, turned the fears of the disability community into reality.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided two major cases in 1999 that limited the scope of the ADA. In Sutton v. United Airlines, two applicants for pilot positions with poor vision brought disability discrimination cases to challenge United Airlines’ minimum vision requirements. The Court determined that mitigating measures taken to alleviate the effects of a physical impairment must be considered when determining whether an individual has a disability under the ADA. Noting that glasses or contacts could correct the job applicants’ vision to 20/20, the Court determined that the pilots did not have a disability under the ADA and did not qualify for ADA protections.

In the second case, Murphy v. United Parcel Service, Mr. Murphy was fired from his position because he could not obtain health certification from the Department of Transportation to operate a commercial vehicle as a result of his high blood pressure. Because medication allowed him to engage in all major life activities, he was deemed to be not disabled under the ADA.

The effect of these cases on the reach of the ADA was profound. They were repeatedly cited by lower courts to dismiss ADA claims when the effects of a mental or physical disability were being mitigated through medications, prosthetics, or even assistive technologies (AT). For example, in the case of Eckhaus v. Consolidated Rail Corp., Ruth Eckhaus was fired by her employer because of her use of hearing aids. Ruth filed an ADA based lawsuit, claiming that she had been discriminated against based on her hearing impairment. The court considered that her hearing aids helped to correct her hearing impairment and determined that, as a result, she was not disabled under the ADA and dismissed her case.

These cases illustrate how narrowly courts were interpreting the ADA. Courts used the ADA’s definition of disability to dismiss cases as a preliminary matter, avoiding even having to consider the real issues—whether a PWD could perform the essential functions of a job, or whether an accommodation requested was reasonable.

This left many PWD in a classic conundrum: they were not disabled enough to qualify for protections under the ADA, but they were clearly being treated poorly because of their disabilities. For example, consider the bind the Suttons, Mr. Murphy, and Ruth Eckhaus were placed in when trying to plead their cases to the court. On one hand, they had to prove that they could perform the essential functions of the job. On the other hand, they had to prove that their medications or AT did not mitigate their disability to the point where they were no longer disabled.

In reaction to Sutton, Murphy, and countless lower court rulings like Eckhaus, Congress passed the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA), which included two major revisions to the ADA. First, the ADAAA defined several terms found within the definition of disability, such as “major life activities.” Second, the ADAAA mandated that courts follow specific rules when interpreting the definition of disability. Notably, one of these rules declares that “the ameliorative effects of mitigating measures” cannot be taken into account when determining if someone has a disability. The “use of assistive technologies” is also specifically included within a list of mitigating measures that cannot be taken into account when considering whether someone is a PWD (except for eyeglasses and contact lenses—people with ordinary near or far-sightedness are not intended to be protected by the ADA). To put this simply, the improvement of a limitation through the use of a device or medication is not to be considered when determining an individual’s disability.

For Ruth Eckhaus, these changes mean that if she had brought her case today, a court could not take into account the effects of her hearing aids when determining whether or not she has a disability. As a result, Ruth Eckhaus would qualify for the protections of the ADA, and a court would have to address the issues presented by her case. For all PWD, this represents an enormous benefit—no longer will PWD find themselves in an impossible “catch-22.” Instead, PWD can now take advantage of medications or technologies that improve their quality of life without worrying about losing the protections of the ADA. ■

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