Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA)

What Is the Americans With Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA)?

The Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA) was legislation passed in September 2008 and effective January 1, 2009, that expanded the population that is viewed as disabled under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The ADAAA rolled out huge improvements to the definition of "disability," making it simpler for an individual seeking protection under the ADA to lay out that they have a disability as defined inside the law.

Understanding the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA)

Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA) in response to several Supreme Court choices that barely deciphered the ADA's definition of disability, in this manner making it hard to demonstrate that an impairment was a "disability". This had brought about individuals with malignant growth, diabetes, epilepsy, consideration deficit hyperactivity jumble (ADHD), learning disabilities, and different ailments being excluded from ADA coverage.

In passing the ADAAA, Congress basically upset the Supreme Court choices which Congress accepted had too barely defined the term "disability". The ADAAA made a number of tremendous changes to the definition of disability to guarantee that the term would be comprehensively interpreted and applied without broad analysis so all individuals with disabilities could receive the law's protections. The Act likewise directed the [U.S. Equivalent Employment Opportunity Commission](/equivalent employment-opportunity-commission-eeoc) (EEOC's) regulations to execute the ADAAA, explicitly Congress' order to interpret a more extensive definition of "disability".

ADAAA Extensions to the ADA

The ADAAA kept the ADA's definition of the term "disability" as "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits at least one major life activities; a record (or past history) of such an impairment; or being viewed as having a disability". Nonetheless, the ADAAA and the accordingly modified EEOC regulations executed the huge changes that Congress made in the interpretation of these terms.

While the regulations were less onerous in characterizing what "substantially limits" meant (so that "significant" didn't need to mean that an impairment was sufficiently extreme to outright forestall or harshly or fundamentally confine a major life activity), they likewise explained that an individual must be covered under by the same token "actual disability" or "record of disability" to receive accommodation.

The ADAAA taught that accommodation be made without going to into account ameliorative lengths (like medicine or amplifier) with one exception, that being sight adjusted by ordinary eyeglasses or contact focal points. An impairment that is rambling in nature or disappearing was to stay thought about a disability assuming it would substantially limit a major life activity when active.

Features

• The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a piece of employment law passed by congress in 1990 to forestall working environment and hiring discrimination against employees with disabilities, everything being equal.
• The Americans With Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008, or ASAAA, considered a more extensive legal definition of "disability."
• By expanding the terms of the ADA, the ADAAA gives greater protections under the law.