The latest from Work Matters
| ADA amendments means suits that would have been dismissed will get to a jury |
| The Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA) is working its way through the courts. Things do not look good for employers. Suits once tossed as a matter of course now will get to a jury. Look at Lowe v. American Eurocopter, LLC , a December 2010 case from the Northern District of Mississippi. Here is how the court sketched out the facts in denying a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) motion. Yolanda Lowe sued under the ADAAA, claiming that she was terminated because of her disability: obesity. Rule 12(b)(6) motion denied. The court remarked that, before the amendments, obesity only would be a disability in "rare circumstances"(quoting then-existing EEOC guidance). But after the amendments, obesity is a disability. All the plaintiff needed to say, as she did in her complaint, was that her weight was such that it substantially affected her in the major life activity of walking. Presto, she's now an ADAAA-covered person. Interesting, but there is more. She also claimed that her employer "regarded" her as having a disability. To survive a motion to dismiss on this type of claim before the amendments, the court noted she would have needed to allege that her employer believed, albeit erroneously, that her condition substantially limited her in performing a major life function. No more. Here is the court: "Under the ADAAA, an individual is now not required to demonstrate that the disability she is regarded as having is an actual qualified disability under the ADA or that it substantially limits a major life activity. The ADAAA requires a plaintiff to only show that 'he or she has been subjected to an action prohibited under this chapter because of an actual or perceived physical or mental impairment whether or not the impairment limits or is perceived to limit a major life activity.' Thus, a plaintiff now might be considered disabled due to obesity under the ADA if her employer perceived her weight as an impairment." The genie is out of the bottle. Employees with any kind of impairment now can sue if they merely can show that they had an impairment and the employer took action against them because of it. In the ADAAA, Congress cut the brakes embedded in the previous law. Crashes are imminent. |
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