With the augmentation of the Americans With Disabilities Amendments Act (ADAAA), the original ADA was used 21,500 times in 2009 to file disability discrimination claims against employers, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) statistics show.

The ADAAA was instrumental in restoring the original intent of Congress behind the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act, whose 20th anniversary came just this past July 26, by resurrecting the robustness of the definition of "disability" that had been whittled down by court decisions. 

The ADAAA, which took effect in 2009, undid limitations on the ADA by the Supreme Court in a series of rulings beginning in 1999, says Andrew Imparato, president of the American Association of People with Disabilities.

The Supreme Court had restricted the reach of the ADA by excluding people whose disabilities were not visible or were controlled by medication, such as epilepsy or diabetes.

EEOC Commissioner Chai Feldblum, who as an attorney helped draft the ADA and the amendments, says the change in the law helps everyone.

"You might not think you have a disability, but if you have a medical condition and you feel you are discriminated against based on that condition, then you are covered," she says.

Employers, stay in compliance and prevent legal action by obtaining and following the instructions in Personnel Concepts’ ADA Amendments Act Compliance Kit.

On Monday, July 26, 2010, which was the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued new final regulations regarding service animals and the use of Segways (mobility devices). 

Dogs and miniature horses individually trained to mitigate the effects of a disability are now the only animals that qualify as service animals.

The rules also now require entities to allow individuals with disabilities to use Segways wherever pedestrians and wheelchairs are permitted, unless it would fundamentally alter the entity’s services or pose a threat to safety.

At the same time, Justice announced its intentions to regulate the Web, 911 services and movie captioning to make them more accessible to disabled individuals. Though it gave no date for publication, the department issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) concerning the new regulations. It also opened a public commentary period.

Entities that accept federal funding have long been required to make their Web sites accessible to the handicapped under Section 508 of the 1974 Rehabilitation Act; now the new rules will extend some form of those standards to all Web sites.

New rules implementing the ADA’s Title I employment provisions were also expected from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) this month but have been delayed.

Personnel Concepts will continue to monitor developments concerning the implementation of the ADA and keep you advised here and on the parent Web site, PersonnelConcepts.com.

Please visit our Web section on Harassment and Discrimination for our array of fine products for implementing the ADA and other such laws.

It was 20 years ago today (July 26, 2010, then 1990) that President George H.W. Bush signed into law the landmark Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).

After court decisions had whittled down the scope of the ADA through the years, Congress sought to restore the robust ADA that the authors had envisioned and in 2008 passed the ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA), which is to this day awaiting the approval of final regulations (stuck in review at the Office of Management and Budget ((OMB)) since the fourth quarter of 2009). Ironically or otherwise, it was the first President Bush’s son, George W. Bush, who signed the ADAAA into law.

“The EEOC is proud of its enforcement efforts under the ADA for the past 20 years, moving forward to fulfill the nation’s promise to give all Americans opportunity, dignity and respect in the workplace,” said EEOC [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] Chair Jacqueline A. Berrien during a ceremony this past Thursday. “The ADA did not erase all of our challenges, but we have learned over the years, as we also celebrate the 45th anniversary of the EEOC’s founding this month, that the American workplace has changed for the better.”

President Obama is expected to host a commemorative event at the White House this evening.

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is looking to expand the ADA to areas of high technology that didn’t exist when the ADA was inked, requiring Web sites  to adopt voice recognition and 911 call centers to add text and video messaging to 911 call centers.

The NPRM (Notice of Proposed Rule Making) issued by the EEOC in September 2009, which will become the basis of the ADAAA final regulations when finally released, created a rather broad and all-encompassing definition of disability that is already reverberating in the workplace.

Fortunately, Personnel Concepts has written and made available an important and all-encompassing ADA Amendments Act Compliance Kit that will guide employers through understanding and implementing provisions of the ADAAA. Get yours today to honor the letter and spirit of the original ADA. 

The City of Detroit recently settled an Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) lawsuit filed by an employee who unsuccessfully sought a reasonable accommodation because a coworker’s perfume made it difficult for her to breathe.

Now, one might conclude that a municipality may have more inclination to settle than fight since it’s using OPM (other people’s money), whereas a private employer might try to win in court.

However, with ADAAA (ADA Amendments Act) regulations coming soon (July), the woman’s request for a reasonable accommodation and the city’s rapid settlement both make sense.

The ADAAA defines disability as anything that limits a "major life activity," and breathing is certainly a major life activity. The employer might argue that in this case the perfume did not "substantially limit" the employee’s respiratory system, but the ADAAA comes to the plaintiff’s (employee’s) defense here too. The ADAAA shifts the burden in lawsuits onto employers, who now must prove that they offered a "reasonable accommodation" rather than challenge or disprove the disability.

In this light, it made perfect sense for the City of Detroit to settle (and then to ban all employees from wearing anything scented). Absent proof that the city had offered the employee a reasonable accommodation that the employee then refused, the defendant municipality had no legal defense.

Be prepared for your own reasonable accommodation requests. Get your copy of Personnel Concepts’ ADA Amendments Act Compliance Kit today.

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), which took effect Nov. 21, 2009, not only forbids employers and health insurers from collecting individuals’ genetic information and using that in their decision-making; it also prohibits the solicitation of family medical histories, again to prevent discrimination in decision-making.

As the Wall Street Journal recently pointed out, however, GINA could put a serious dent in workplace wellness programs, which have often relied on family health histories to help employees make informed life-style decisions to improve their physical well-being and ward off disease and disability.

And wellness programs are hugely popular too, with some 70 percent of the nation’s employers subsidizing them, often with financial rewards for the participants in terms of health premium discounts and other incentives.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which oversees enforcement of GINA, is still finalizing implementing regulations, which may or may not include a dramatic ban on employers’ use of social media sites to screen employees and job applicants (since people frequently post family and medical information on their personal pages).

Meanwhile, employers running wellness programs are trying to figure out how best to proceed, given the new restrictions on information they may obtain from their employees.

Also, when GINA took effect in November, the EEOC updated its notification poster to include language on GINA and on the Americans With Disabilities Amendments Act (ADAAA). The best way to stay current with the new posting requirement is to obtain the latest version for your state of Personnel Concepts Space Saver-1 Labor Law Poster, which aggregates all your mandated state and federal postings into one conveniently sized poster.

The Ninth Circuit Court recently ruled that, unlike the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) which covers only those who are in an employee-employer relationship, the Rehabilitation Act is worded more loosely to cover any "otherwise qualified individual."

Thus in reviewing a lawsuit against a hospital, the court ruled in favor of an independent contractor who claimed he had been denied employment based on a disability. The hospital for its part claimed the plaintiff had no legal standing since he was not an employee, as required under the ADA.

(The Rehabilitation Act is a precursor to the ADA in protecting people with disabilities, but it applies only to those businesses that receive federal funding.)

The case in question was Fleming v. Yuma Regional Medical Center. The plaintiff, an anesthesiologist, claimed he was denied a contract because he was suffering from Sickle Cell Anemia. The hospital countered that he couldn’t sue because he was not an employee, but an independent contractor.

On Nov. 19, 2009, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled in the plaintiff’s favor and rejected the argument that the ADA restricts the scope of the Rehabilitation Act.

The Tenth Circuit Court has also interpreted matters in the same way, so in those two jurisdictions at least, the Rehabilitation Act does indeed protect independent contractors as well as employees. Since the Sixth and Eighth Circuit Courts have ruled exactly the opposite–that the ADA does restrict lawsuits under the Rehabilitation Act to employees–the logical place for the issue to be resolved is the Supreme Court, but it’s not on the docket yet.

Meanwhile, to keep up with the ADA itself, get a copy of Personnel Concepts’ ADA Amendments Act Compliance Kit and learn of how the ADA now covers virtually every employee.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently released a new version of its "Equal Employment Opportunity Is the Law" poster that incorporates new regulations for the ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA) and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), along with new contact information.

With GINA taking effect for employers on Nov. 21, 2009, it is imperative to make sure your labor law posters include the revised EEOC posting. Personnel Concepts has revised all of its Space Saver-1 State and Federal Labor Law Posters to incorporate the new EEOC version. Update subscribers will be mailed replacement EEOC panels for their SS-1s in November, and others should call Customer Service at (800) 333-3795 to obtain theirs. If you purchase a new state and federal labor law poster from us, it will include all new mandated postings, including EEOC’s.

GINA protects individuals from discrimination based on genetic information at work and in health care matters. Health insurers and health plan administrators came under GINA’s regulation this past May 21.

The EEOC and DOJ’s Civil Rights Division will hold four town hall meetings throughout the nation to share information and gather comments about proposed regulations in the recently enacted Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act. Each town hall meeting will consist of two sessions, one for disability advocates and one for the employer community, offering opportunities for both the business and disability communities to comment in person. The meetings will take place by Nov. 20 in Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco and New Orleans.

In addition, as part of a Federal Government-wide job fair for people with disabilities during early Spring 2010, the EEOC and other agencies will provide workshops throughout the day on a variety of topics involving reasonable accommodations for Federal workers and applicants. At the job fair, people with disabilities should be able to register, submit materials and perhaps get hired on the spot.

Acting EEOC Vice Chair Christine M. Griffin said, “For too long, Americans with disabilities have been pushed to the rear of the hiring line. The EEOC’s town hall meetings and workshops, in concert with other Administration measures, should position workers with disabilities for a fair chance at a federal job.”

The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), originally passed in 1990, sought to open up employment in the private sector to persons with physical or mental disabilities who were otherwise perfectly capable of performing the required duties. The ADA brought to private enterprise what the 1973 Rehabilitation Act did for federal agencies and firms carrying out federal contracts.

Through the years, though, the Supreme Court kept nibbling away at the definition of disability to the point that the ADA lost almost all its teeth.

Voila–the Americans With Disabilities Amendment Act (ADAAA), signed into law this year by President Bush. The ADAAA clarifies exactly the intended definition of disability and throws in another category, “regarded as disabled.” Taken together, the two categories–disability and “regarded as disabled”–pretty much cover every human being alive.

In fact, the ADAAA basically states that employers should accept at face value an employee’s announcement of an impairment or disability that requires a reasonable accommodation. (There’s one out clause–if the accommodation involves “undue hardship” for the company and its operations, then it might not be considered “reasonable.”)

If you don’t believe me, read this definition of “regarded as disabled”: “[A]ctual or perceived physical or mental impairment whether or not the impairment limits or is perceived to limit a major life activity.”

(Major life activities include, but are not limited to, caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working.)

My question is this: If an employee, for instance, has sleep apnea and thus is tired in the daytime, would a “reasonable accommodation” include a sleep break or two or three? A specially cushioned chair so as to be able to drift off into slumber when necessary?

I’m only half joking, but I think you get the idea that the ADAAA has significantly broadened the scope of what constitutes a disability.

Meanwhile, I’m relying on my old friends at Personnel Concepts to keep me updated on all this. In fact, the company has already issued its ADAAA Compliance Kit.