Jan 1, 2009

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ADA Amendments – A Happy New Year?

Today, January 1, 2009, the ADA Amendments Act takes effect, intalling new language into the near 20-year-old law that, depending on who you talk to, either overhauls or sets to rights the definition of what a disability is. 

The ADAAA includes language that, among other things, will dissolve Supreme Court interpretations of the ADA that excluded people through narrow readings of the law’s more vague terminology like “substantially impairing” and “major life activity.”  It will also include those who would have a disability without corrective measures like glasses or hearing aids. 

Whether the amendments improve or impair the ADA will be a topic of debate for quite some time.  But Congress has made it clear that the focus of the courts should be on whether accomodations were made, and not whether the person is or is not disabled. 

It will be interesting to see whether – and how - courts will get to the accomodation question without determining if a disability exists.