Committee Reports

110th Congress (2007-2008)

House Report 110-730 - Part 1

2d Session

Part 1

--ADA AMENDMENTS ACT OF 2008

[To accompany H.R. 3195]

[Including cost estimate of the Congressional Budget Office]

The Committee on Education and Labor, to whom was referred the bill (H.R. 3195) to restore the intent and protections of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, having considered the same, report favorably thereon with an amendment and recommend that the bill as amended do pass.

The amendment is as follows:

Strike all after the enacting clause and insert the following:

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `ADA Amendments Act of 2008'.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.

(a) Findings- Congress finds that--

(1) in enacting the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), Congress intended that the Act `provide a clear and comprehensive national mandate for the elimination of discrimination against individuals with disabilities' and provide broad coverage;

(2) in enacting the ADA, Congress recognized that physical and mental disabilities in no way diminish a person's right to fully participate in all aspects of society, but that people with physical or mental disabilities are frequently precluded from doing so because of prejudice, antiquated attitudes, or the failure to remove societal and institutional barriers;

(3) while Congress expected that the definition of disability under the ADA would be interpreted consistently with how courts had applied the definition of handicap under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, that expectation has not been fulfilled;

(4) the holdings of the Supreme Court in Sutton v. United Airlines, Inc., 527 U.S. 471 (1999) and its companion cases, and in Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, Inc. v. Williams, 534 U.S. 184 (2002) have narrowed the broad scope of protection intended to be afforded by the ADA, thus eliminating protection for many individuals whom Congress intended to protect; and

(5) as a result of these Supreme Court cases, lower courts have incorrectly found in individual cases that people with a range of substantially limiting impairments are not people with disabilities.

(b) Purposes- The purposes of this Act are--

(1) to carry out the ADA's objectives of providing `a clear and comprehensive national mandate for the elimination of discrimination' and `clear, strong, consistent, enforceable standards addressing discrimination' by reinstating a broad scope of protection to be available under the ADA;

(2) to reject the requirement enunciated by the Supreme Court in Sutton v. United Airlines, Inc., 527 U.S. 471 (1999) and its companion cases that whether an impairment substantially limits a major life activity is to be determined with reference to the ameliorative effects of mitigating measures;

(3) to reject the Supreme Court's reasoning in Sutton v. United Airlines, Inc., 527 U.S. 471 (1999) with regard to coverage under the third prong of the definition of disability and to reinstate the reasoning of the Supreme Court in School Board of Nassau County v. Arline, 480 U.S. 273 (1987) which set forth a broad view of the third prong of the definition of handicap under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973;

(4) to reject the standards enunciated by the Supreme Court in Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, Inc. v. Williams, 534 U.S. 184 (2002), that the terms `substantially' and `major' in the definition of disability under the ADA `need to be interpreted strictly to create a demanding standard for qualifying as disabled,' and that to be substantially limited in performing a major life activity under the ADA `an individual must have an impairment that prevents or severely restricts the individual from doing activities that are of central importance to most people's daily lives'; and

(5) to provide a new definition of `substantially limits' to indicate that Congress intends to depart from the strict and demanding standard applied by the Supreme Court in Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, Inc. v. Williams and by numerous lower courts.

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