In 2008, Congress undertook a task that was over 20 years in the making. The Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA) was supposed to signal a new way for federal courts, judges, lawyers and litigants to evaluate disability claims. The emphasis would shift from whether a person had an actual disability, to whether discrimination actually occurred.
The preamble to the ADAAA, 42 U.S.C. § 12101(a)(6), specifically rebuked lower courts that incorrectly found in individual cases that people with a range of substantially limiting impairments are not people with disabilities. Courts were instructed by Congress to broadly interpret the ADAAA in favor of coverage, thereby protecting more Americans from discrimination.
