At Long Last, the ADA Has Been Amended!

In my practice I represent a lot of individuals with disabilities. 

The Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), among other things, protects individuals with conditions that substantially limit them in one or more major life activities.  Individuals falling under that definition are entitled to workplace accommodations and protections from discrimination and retaliation in the workplace. 

The ADA, as it was originally drafted and passed in 1990, was intended to ensure equality in pursuing jobs, goods, services and other opportunities.  Since then, and in a relatively short time, federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have hacked away at the ADA’s protections to the point that individuals with cancer, mental retardation and diabetes (just to name a few) were regularly being found by courts to not be disabled and, thus, not entitled to protection under the Act. 

The National Employment Lawyers Association, of which I am a proud member, has long advocated and lobbied for changes to Act to restore the ADA to its original intention.  After much effort, at long last, on September 25, 2008, the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 was signed into law.  These substantial revisions clearly set forth what was intended by Congress back in 1990--that the Act’s protections are to be broadly interpreted to provide broad coverage to individuals with substantial limitations.  While the Act’s revisions are too numerous to be listed here, the substantive changes clearly exhibit that the federal courts and the Supreme Court have had it wrong for some time now and that the threshold to prove a “substantial limitation” should be broadly defined as should what constitutes a major life activity.

If these changes have the effect on the judiciary that we are thinking and hoping they will, individuals in the workplace who are struggling to perform their positions and/or maintain their jobs are going to enjoy far greater protections that what we have seen in recent years.

 As a plaintiff’s attorney who is committed to representing individuals struggling with medical conditions, I could not be more thrilled with the passage of this Act.

The Act becomes effective January 1, 2009.

Kristin Case
The Case Law Firm, LLC.
www.thecaselawfirm.com
kcase@thecaselawfirm.com