August 23, 2008

Andrew Grossman of Heritage, who has been tracking the details of the bills to expand the Americans with Disabilities Act by overturning Supreme Court cases that had gone favorably to defendants, discerns a big difference between the House and Senate versions of the wired-for-passage legislation:

The Senate's ADA Amendments Act represents a real and tangible improvement over the House version, which would have abandoned a large body of important case law, throwing the employment disability law into disarray. In contrast, the Senate's approach, while still bad policy on the whole, is far less damaging to the law, and for that reason, its impact on the economy, the international competitiveness of U.S. businesses, and employment is likely to be far less. Now is not the right time to expand ADA coverage, but if legislation is inevitable, Congress should still reject approaches that muddy the meaning of the law and would inflict unnecessary pain across the economy.

The National Law Journal covered the legislation (and very one-sidedly, too) here. Relatedly, the D.C. Circuit has recently brought both sleeping disorders and sexual dysfunction within the scope of the ADA as covered disabilities.