Troubling Trends: ADA Definition-of-Disability Cases 2019–2023

Abstract

This empirical Article continues my every-five-year tradition of examining every federal case discussing the definition of disability since the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was amended, effective 2009. The results of this research from the third five-year period (2019–2023) are disappointing in both familiar and surprising ways. Similar to the 2014–2018 period, we continue to see way too many courts incorrectly applying (or not even citing to) the ADA Amendments Act. Moreover, I discovered several new troubling trends in this dataset that raise the possibility that we might be heading toward another backlash against ADA plaintiffs. This Article presents my findings and briefly addresses the implications of this discouraging data.