Congress passed a bill, S. 3406, amending the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), reversing several U.S. Supreme Court decisions and enhancing anti-discrimination laws in employment for individuals with disabilities. The bill was a two-year bipartisan effort in response to a litany of federal cases that precluded many disabled employees from the protections intended by Congress in enacting the ADA.
Due to several federal courts' narrow construction of what an individual with a disability entails, many employees with conditions like diabetes, epilepsy or other illnesses that can be controlled by medication or other means were denied coverage under the ADA. One of the major changes to the ADA now prevents mitigating cirumstances like medication, prosthesis or other measures from being considered in determining whether an individual may be categorized as disabled. This amendment reverses the Supreme Court decision in Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc. (1999) 527 U.S. 471.
Another signficant amendment to the ADA involves broadening the definition of what “substantially limiting” a "major life activity" entails for an individual to be deemed disabled. The bill rejects the Supreme Court holding in Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, Inc. v. Williams (2002) 534 U.S. 184 that constrained major life activity to performing "manual tasks" to those tasks that are of "central importance to most people's daily lives." With the amendment to the ADA, now an employee can be covered under the definition of disabled if he or she can show that the employer regarded him or her unable to perform a particular major life activity.
What is the impact of this bill for California employees? Well, these changes to the ADA will help prospective plaintiff employees in federal court. But Caifornia state courts have long extended similar or greater greater protections to employees with disabilities through the Fair Employment and Housing Act. In fact, in 2001, the California legislature responded to some of the same U.S. Supreme Court decisions that the U.S. Congress is only just beginning to remedy with the passage of these amendments to the ADA.
--Mythily Sivarajah
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