President George W. Bush signed into law the ADA Amendments Act on September 25, 2008, with a statutory effective date of January 1, 2009. Public Law 110-235, sec. 8. The Amendments Act made very important changes to the definition of disability. President Bush intended to give persons with disabilities an easier venue by which to establish their disability when seeking protection under the Act.
It is noted that the definition of “disability” was too narrowly focused to benefit the disabled. The Amendments Act helped to achieve the goal of providing protection to the disabled by explicitly rejecting the holdings in a number of Supreme Court decisions that overwhelmingly limited the definition of disability. As amended by the ADA Amendments Act, the definition of disability under the ADA, 42 U.S.C. 12101, et seq., is to be construed broadly to the maximum extent allowed by the provisions of  ADA. Further an individual should not have to employ extensive analysis to determine whether an individual has a disability or not.
The United States Congress enacted the ADA Amendments Act in response to a number of Supreme Court decisions that narrowly defined the term disability denying protection for many individuals that Congress intended under the original Act. Public Law 110-325, sec. 2.  The Supreme Court ruled against many disabled persons because of narrowly defining the terms – disability, substantially, major and regarded as. Because of the Supreme Court decision in Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc., 527 U.S. 471 (1999) and Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky Inc., v. Williams, 534 U.S. 184 (2002), many lower courts ruled in a number of cases that individuals with a range of sound limiting impairments were not persons with disabilities and were not protected by the ADA.
Many of the court decisions impacted employment, but the narrowing of the term disability had a negative bearing on individuals from all avenues seeking protection under ADA. The court’s ruling had a profound impact on individuals seeking reasonable accommodations with learning challenges in education programs from elementary schools to colleges and universities.  Again, because of the narrow interpretation of what the Congress originally intended for ADA, concluding that in the cases of Sutton and Toyota the definition of disability was much more narrowly applied than what Congress had intended. For that reason the Congress passed the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 intending to change the environment, including the legal environment, so that disabled individuals can be protected from discrimination under the ADA.
P. S. Always Remember to Share What You Know.
Dianna Tafazoli
