Abstract

I set out to find and read every case that addressed the definition of disability from the point my last article left off until the present (January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2018). This resulted in 976 cases. Of those 976 cases, the court erroneously held that the plaintiff was not disabled in 210 of them...

This Article attempts to explain what went wrong—why did courts incorrectly hold that the plaintiff was not disabled in more than 200 cases? The answer, I’ve concluded, is a little bit of ignorance (courts and parties that were apparently unaware that the ADAAA was passed); a little bit of incompetence (plaintiffs who did not adequately plead their claims and did not use all of the interpretive tools available under the ADAAA); and possibly, a little bit of animus. I don’t make this last conclusion lightly. And it is admittedly hard to tell whether mistakes made by the courts are good faith but erroneous interpretations of the law, or whether the prior backlash against the ADA is rearing its head again.

This Article will proceed in three additional parts. Part II will provide a background of the ADA—from the first eighteen years of the ADA’s existence, to the passage and provisions of the ADAAA, and to a summary of cases interpreting the definition of disability in the first five years after the ADAAA was passed. Part III will discuss the various errors made by courts and parties. Finally, Part IV will briefly address the implications of this research and identify potential areas of future exploration.

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

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2019

Publication Information

26 Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy 383-414 (2019)

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