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Recent changes to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or  EEOC regulations, which will go into effect on January 1, 2009, update the definition of a disability under the law. It’s vital for every employer to be aware of these changes.

 

Originally, the EEOC took a very broad view of the term “disability” under the ADA, or Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Since that time, a number of Supreme Court decisions have narrowed the definition of a disability considerably.

 

It’s important to understand the history of these regulations. In one of the most obvious cases, the Supreme Court ruled that an employee was considered not to have a disability if the employee, using a mitigating measure, did not have major impairment to life activities, like walking, shopping, personal grooming or using a telephone book. Using this definition, for example, the Supremes ruled that a man with two artificial legs did not meet the definition of disabled under the ADA. That’s becasue he could complete all major life activities (although with some difficulty) using his artificial legs. The employer was not required to give this man time off to travel to another state and have a new artificial limb fitted under ADA, because he didn’t have a disability. Under the new EEOC regulations, this employee would be entitled to time off, as a reasonable accommodation under ADA.

 

In other cases, the justices of the Supreme Court ruled that an employee with a chronic or even terminal disease was not disabled if the symptoms were controlled by medication, or in remission. For example, an employee with Multiple Sclerosis who was symptom-free could not rearrange her work schedule to keep appointments with a specialist in a nearby city. Many people with HIV, in the early stages of the virus that causes AIDS, were not considered disabled. Beginning in 2009, these employees will have protection under ADA as disabled workers.

 

Under the ADA Amendments Act, a bill signed into law by President George W. Bush, the EEOC has reverted to the original ADA definition of a disability as an impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.

 

Under the new definition of disability, an employee is disabled if they have an impairment that substantially limits any one of a number of major life activities. The act specifically mentions walking but adds reading, bending and communicating.

 

The act also specifies that certain impairments to major bodily systems would be considered disabilities, including impaired functions of the immune system, normal cell growth, digestive, bowel, bladder, neurological, brain, respiratory, circulatory, endocrine and reproductive functions. These guidelines would specifically make every employee who is HIV positive disabled.

 

It’s important to add that the ADA definition of disability also includes a record of such impairment to major life activities, or to someone who is regarded as having such an impairment.

 

 

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