Abstract

[T]his paper explores whether courts are using the reasonable accommodation provision or the qualified individual inquiry to limit the number of individuals entitled to the special protection of the ADA...

This paper will proceed in five parts. Part II provides a brief history of the ADA, both of its structure and legislative history. It then proceeds to a discussion of the major Supreme Court cases that dramatically narrowed the coverage of the ADA through a narrow interpretation of what it means to be an individual with a disability. I will also discuss why courts may have narrowly construed the statute. Part II then turns to a discussion of the ADA Amendments Act's provisions.

Part III discusses the body of case law decided after the Amendments were adopted that addresses the issue of whether the plaintiff has a disability, exploring the question of whether courts are following Congress' mandate for broad coverage under the ADA. I argue that they are. Courts are interpreting the definition of disability much more broadly than they had been before the Amendments went into effect, and in most cases, interpreting it correctly.

Parts IV and V discusses the body of cases decided on the merits. Specifically, I explore how courts are deciding issues of whether the employee is qualified and whether the employee is entitled to a reasonable accommodation. Specifically, Part IV reviews cases where the issue is whether the employee can perform the physical functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodations. Although I predicted that these cases might reveal another backlash against the ADA, the case law does not demonstrate such a backlash. It might simply be too early to tell whether courts are going to be resistant to requiring employers to grant physical modifications to the workplace or job tasks.

Finally, Part V discusses the body of post-ADAAA cases where the employee requests a variation of one of the structural norms of the workplace: the hours, shifts, schedules, attendance policies, etc. I argue that these cases reveal a new backlash against the ADA--courts are reluctant to require employers to provide accommodations when those accommodations are related to the structural norms of the workplace, as opposed to physical modifications to the job or the workplace environment. This Part also explores possible reasons why the entrenchment of workplace structural norms exists.

This abstract has been taken from the author's introduction.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2014

Publication Information

82 Tennessee Law Review 1-82 (2014)

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