On March 24^th, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) issued the much anticipated final regulations to implement the ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA).  In its press release, the EEOC emphasized that the purpose of these new regulations are “to simplify the determination of who has a ‘disability’ and make it easier for people to establish that they are protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).”[1] 

Under the ADA, an individual qualifies as “disabled” if she (a) has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities; (b) has a record of such an impairment; or (c) is regarded as having such an impairment.  The regulations have preserved this three-part definition of disability.  However, as part of the effort to broaden coverage under the ADA, the ADAAA and the EEOC regulations have imposed certain noteworthy expansions to the definition’s interpretation. 

For instance, the regulations state that major life activities encompass not only activities such as seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, sitting, reaching, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, but also activities such as the operation of major bodily functions, including functions of the immune system, special sense organs and skin, normal cell growth, digestive, genitourinary, bowel, bladder, neurological, brain, respiratory, circulatory, cardiovascular, endocrine, hemic, lymphatic, musculoskeletal, and reproductive functions.  The recognition of major bodily functions as “major life activities” will make it easier to find that individuals with certain types of impairments have a “disability” under the ADA.  The regulations also provide examples of specific impairments that should require simple, straightforward analysis and should usually be found to constitute a disabilities under the ADA.  These impairments include deafness, blindness, intellectual disability, partially or completely missing limbs, mobility impairments requiring use of a wheelchair, autism, cancer, cerebral palsy, diabetes, epilepsy, HIV infection, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and schizophrenia.

Most importantly, as the EEOC has so aptly put it, the new regulations reflect a fundamental shift in disability discrimination analysis under the ADA: “[t]he changes to the regulations reflect changes made by the ADAAA itself, which are intended to make the primary focus of an ADA inquiry whether discrimination occurred, not whether an individual meets the definition of ‘disability.’”[2]

                Although plaintiff employees still have their work cut out for them in terms of successfully litigating a disability discrimination case, the new ADAAA regulations seem to clear at least one more hurdle.