The EEOC is issuing new regulations to implement the Equal Employment Provisions of the 8 Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act of 2008. EEOC explains:
Our revised analysis proceeds as follows. In analyzing the available data, we are mindful of the fact that the Amendments Act was designed to make it easier to meet the definition of disability under the ADA and to expand the universe of people considered to have disabilities. Prior to the Amendments Act, the Supreme Court in Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc., 527 U.S. 471 (1999), used the ADA’s finding that approximately 43 million Americans had disabilities as part of its reason for concluding that the benefits of mitigating measures (e.g., medication, corrective devices) an individual used had to be taken into account when determining whether a person had a substantially limiting impairment. The Amendments Act rejected this restrictive definition of disability and explicitly removed this finding from the law. It also provided that the ameliorative effects of mitigating measures (except ordinary eyeglasses or contact lenses) were not to be taken into account in determining whether a person’s impairment substantially limited a major life activity.Thus, based on the Amendments Act’s rejection of Sutton alone -- apart from the many other changes it made to the definition of a substantial limitation in a major life activity -- we know that the number of people now covered under the ADA as having a substantially limiting impairment or a record thereof should be significantly more than 43 million. (The Court surmised that the 43 million number was derived from a National Council on Disability report, Toward Independence (Feb. 1986), available at http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/1986/toward.htm, which in turn was based on Census Bureau data and other studies that used “functional limitation” analyses of whether individuals were limited in performing selected basic activities.)Under the ADA as amended, the definition of an impairment that substantially limits a major life activity will obviously be broader than captured by prior measures, since “substantial” no longer means “severe” or “significantly restricted,” major life activities now include “major bodily functions,” the ameliorative effects of mitigating measures (other than ordinary eyeglasses or contact lenses) are disregarded, and conditions that are episodic or in remission are substantially limiting if they would be when active. Based on the available data, it is impossible to determine with precision how many individuals have impairments that will meet the current definition of substantially limiting a major life activity or a record thereof. We do know, however, that, at a minimum, this group should easily be concluded to include individuals with the conditions listed in § 1630.2(j)(3)(iii) of the final regulations -- including autism, cancer, cerebral palsy, diabetes, epilepsy, HIV infection, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, and a variety of mental impairments.While it is true that, prior to the Amendments Act, many of these individuals were assumed to be covered under the law by their employers, the reality was that large numbers of individuals with these conditions were considered by the courts not to have disabilities, based on an individualized assessment of how well the individuals were managing with their impairments, taking into account mitigating measures. Thus, for purposes of this regulatory assessment, we consider individuals with all of these impairments to be individuals whose coverage has now been clarified by the Amendments Act....Thus, we use as a starting point the data reported by government agencies and various organizations on the number of individuals in the United States with autism, cancer, cerebral palsy, diabetes, epilepsy, HIV infection, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, and a variety of mental impairments.7 Adding these admittedly disparate and potentially overlapping numbers (and acknowledging that some of these estimates include children and are not restricted by employment status), we can assume a rough estimate of the number of individuals with these impairments who would be found substantially limited in a major life activity as a result of the Amendments Act, as follows:--Autism – Approximately 1.5 million individuals in the United States are affected by autism.88 See “What is Autism?” http://www.autismspeaks.org/whatisit/index.php (last visited Mar. 1, 2011); see also Centers for Disease Control, ”Prevalence of the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) in Multiple Areas of the United States, 2000 and 2002,” available athttp://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/documents/AutismCommunityReport.pdf (various studies regarding prevalence in children).
