Disability Law Commons^™

The Need For Parity In Health Insurance Benefits For The Mentally And Physically Disabled: Questioning Inconsistency Between Two Leading Anti-Discrimination Laws, Sarah Ritz

Journal of Law and Health

Discriminatory practices by the insurance industry, such as benefit limits (caps) on mental health services coverage, or complete lack of mental health care coverage fuel the disparate treatment of those with mental disabilities. These discriminatory practices have been the subject of much debate, and cases challenging those principles have not fared well in the court system. These insurance practices, which single out persons with mental illness and provide them with little or no benefits for mental health care, violate the terms of the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), and are inconsistent with other laws that seek to remedy discrimination against …

Hostile Environment Actions, Title Vii, And The Ada: The Limits Of The Copy-And-Paste Function, Lisa A. Eichhorn

Faculty Publications

Two federal circuits, borrowing from Title VII jurisprudence, recently recognized a cause of action for a disability-based hostile environment under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Neither opinion, however, considered how the analysis of a disability-based hostile environment claim under the ADA might differ from that of a race- or sex-based hostile environment claim under Title VII. This Article examines the differing theories of equality underlying the two statutes and argues that, because the statutes prohibit discrimination in fundamentally different ways, courts must resist the temptation to copy and paste Title VII doctrine into ADA hostile environment opinions. This Article …

A Sanist Will?, Pamela R. Champine

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of Anti-Discrimination Law And The European Union, Michael Ashley Stein

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Disability, Doctors And Dollars: Distinguishing The Three Faces Of Reasonable Accommodation, Elizabeth Pendo

All Faculty Scholarship

Despite a decade of litigation, there is no consistent understanding of the reasonable accommodation requirement of Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (the 'ADA'). Indeed, there are three inconsistent distributive outcomes that appear to comport with the reasonable accommodation requirement: cost-shifting, cost-sharing, and cost-avoidance.

One reason for such inconsistent outcomes is a failure to develop a coherent and consistent theory of disability. Because disability has been and continues to be medicalized, this Article takes a fresh look at the medical literature on health, illness, and disability. It recommends the use of the experiential health model over …

Envisioning A Future For Age And Disability Discrimination Claims, Alison Barnes

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article considers the reasons for reinterpretations of age and disability and examines the fundamental reasons for changes in the implementation of both the ADA and ADEA. Part I presents the basic structure and relevant requirements of the two statutes and comments on the reasons their legislative purposes are not often seen as overlapping. Part II discusses the recent Supreme Court decisions that have undermined the purposes and implementation of both the ADA and ADEA and chilled causes of action based on the ADA and ADEA. Part III projects the current problems with anti-discrimination causes into the future, when older …

"What's Good Is Bad, What's Bad Is Good, You'll Find Out When You Reach The Top, You're On The Bottom": Are The Americans With Disabilities Act (And Olmstead V. L. C.) Anything More Than "Idiot Wind?", Michael L. Perlin

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Mental disability law is contaminated by "sanism, " an irrational prejudice similar to such other irrational prejudices as racism and sexism. The passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)-a statute that focused specifically on questions of stereotyping and stigma-appeared at first to offer an opportunity to deal frontally with sanist attitudes and, optimally, to restructure the way that citizens with mental disabilities were dealt with by the remainder of society. However, in its first decade, the ADA did not prove to be a panacea for such persons. The Supreme Court's 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C. - ruling that …

Constitutional Doctrine As Paring Tool: The Struggle For "Relevant" Evidence In University Of Alabama V. Garrett, Pamela Brandwein

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article examines the difficulties involved in translating the social model of disability into the idiom of constitutional law. The immediate focus is University of Alabama v. Garrett. Both parts of this Article consider how disability rights claims collide with a discourse of legitimacy in constitutional law. Part I focuses on the arguments presented in several major Briefs filed in support of Garrett. Constitutional doctrines are conceived as paring tools and it is shown how the Court used these doctrines to easily pare down the body of evidence Garrett's lawyers sought to claim as relevant in justifying the ADA …

Disability, Equal Protection, And The Supreme Court: Standing At The Crossroads Of Progressive And Retrogressive Logic In Constitutional Classification, Anita Silvers, Michael Ashley Stein

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article compares current disability jurisprudence with the development of sex equality jurisprudence in the area of discrimination. It demonstrates that current disability law resembles the abandoned, sexist framework for determining sex equality and argues that disability equality cases should receive similar analysis as the more progressive, current sex equality standard. As such, the Article attempts to synthesize case law (14th Amendment Equal Protection jurisprudence) and statutory law (Title VII and the ADA) into a comprehensive overview of the state of current disability law viewed within the context of discrimination law in general.

The Death Of Section 504, Ruth Colker

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article argues that the passage of the ADA had an unexpected consequence, namely the narrowing of the rights that were understood to exist under Section 504. Section 504 covered two broad areas of the law: the law of employment for individuals employed by entities receiving federal financial assistance and the law of education for students attending primary, secondary or higher education. The effect on the law of employment, which I will discuss in Part II, has been immediate and dramatic. The effect on the law of education, discussed in Part III, cannot yet be fully documented. Recent decisions, however, …

Reforming Disability Nondiscrimination Laws: A Comparative Perspective, Stanley S. Herr

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Comparing the law and policies of other countries concerning disability rights to ours can help us understand how we may strengthen those rights and heighten compliance with nondiscrimination laws. Since it took effect in 1992, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has been a leading example of such comprehensive legislation on behalf of people with disabilities. Along with the United Nations Standard Rules on Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities, the ADA has inspired many countries to develop their own disability nondiscrimination laws and remedial agencies. This process must work in both directions, however, and laws and agencies from …

Something Borrowed, Something Blue: Why Disability Law Claims Are Different, S. Elizabeth Malloy

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Described as one of the century's most significant pieces of civil rights legislation, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990' has been widely hailed as establishing a new foundation for disability policy Senator Harkin, the primary sponsor of the law, called it "the 20th century Emancipation Proclamation for all persons with disabilities." President Bush predicted that the Act would "open up all aspects of American life to individuals with disabilities" and end the "unjustified segregation and exclusion of persons with disabilities from the mainstream of American life."

Congress enacted the ADA to ensure "equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living …

Bragdon V. Abbott, Asymptomatic Genetic Conditions, And Antidiscrimination Law: A Conservative Perspective , Roger Clegg

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Olmstead V. Zimring, Unnecessary Institutionalization Constitutes Discrimination Under The Americans With Disabilities Act, Shoshana Fishman

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Cleveland V. Policy Management Systems Corporation: Triumph For The Working Disabled Or Hollow Procedural Device?, Sarah N. Otwell

Journal of Health Care Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Discrimination Cases In The Supreme Court’S 1998 Term, Eileen Kaufman

Scholarly Works

In the Supreme Court's 1997 Term, the Supreme Court had decided a record number of statutory discrimination cases. However, that record was exceeded in the Supreme Court's 1998 Term with the Court addressing issues arising under Title VII, which covers discrimination in employment; Title IX, which covers discrimination in schools; and most significantly, the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination based on disability. Overall, the term scored significant victories for employers who were given considerable latitude to set their own physical characteristic standards and who were, to a large extent, immunized from liability for punitive damages. There was an …

Scaling Back The Ada: How The Sutton V. United Airlines Decision Affects Employees With Bipolar Disorder., Kevin Wiley Jr.

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

The Sutton v. United Airlines decision went too far in the Supreme Court’s effort to scale back the protections of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).  Congress should review the Sutton decision and amend the ADA to consider disabilities as they exist without regard to mitigating measures based on the severity of the illness. To seek protection under the ADA, one must have a discernable disability, and one’s impairment must be diagnosed and disclosed to the employer. Disability, however, was not specifically defined in the ADA, and no agency or regulation has specifically defined disability for the courts to utilize …

Tools For Inclusion: Americans With Disabilities Act (Ada) Title 1: Employment, Joe Marrone

Tools for Inclusion Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

Brief overview of the concepts and scope of the Americans with Disabilities Act, plus resource lists.

Tools For Inclusion: The Americans With Disabilities Act: General Overview, Karen Zimbrich

Tools for Inclusion Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

Brief overview of the concepts and scope of the Americans with Disabilities Act, plus resource lists.

Whose Federalism, S. Elizabeth Malloy

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This Article examines briefly the Seminole Tribe and City of Boerne decisions. Part II then focuses on the ADA and the reasons why Congress made it applicable to government conduct as well as private conduct. Finally, Part III examines the argument, based on the new federalism, that the ADA should not apply to state entities. It does not appear that the Court's new federalism has had a liberty-enhancing effect for some of the most vulnerable persons in our society. The Court's revitalized federalism jurisprudence has led to questions about the continuing validity of many of our civil rights statutes as …

Evaluating Purely Reproductive Disorders Under The Americans With Disabilities Act, Todd Lebowitz

Michigan Law Review

Approximately 2.8 million American couples suffer from infertility, a condition generally defined by the medical community as the failure to conceive after one year of unprotected intercourse. During the past thirty years, diagnostic and therapeutic techniques for treating infertility have improved drastically, enabling many previously infertile couples to bear children. These techniques, however, involve considerable expense and inconvenience, frequently requiring patients to take time off from work. Disputes with employers may follow, sometimes resulting in the infertile employee's termination. Some terminated employees, claiming that infertility constitutes a disability, then sue their former employers under the Americans with Disabilities Act of …

When Physicians Balk At Futile Care: Implications Of The Disability Rights Laws, Philip G. Peters Jr.

Faculty Publications

Part I of this article reviews the factual background of the futility debate. Part II introduces the antidiscrimination laws. Thereafter, Parts III, IV, and V examine the three components of the proposal suggested above.

Book Review, Marianne Wesson

Publications

No abstract provided.

From Crippled To Disabled: The Legal Empowerment Of Americans With Disabilities, Michael Ashley Stein

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Reproductive Technology And Disability: Searching For The "Rights" And Wrongs In Explanation, Judith Mosoff

Dalhousie Law Journal

Several years ago I worked as a lawyer representing psychiatric patients on the grounds of a large medieval-looking turn-of-the-century mental hospital in British Columbia. Soon after starting my new job I met Ann, a woman who shortly after her admission as an involuntary patient had informed her treatment team that she was pregnant. She had always wanted to have a baby. When she told her doctor about her pregnancy, he decided that this idea was part of her delusional system and prescribed anti-psychotic drugs to control her pathology. In fact she was pregnant and the medication given during the first …

Miles To Go: Some Personal Reflections On The Social Construction Of Disability, Dianne Pothier

Dalhousie Law Journal

The "social construction" of disability refers to the way an able bodied conception of disability magnifies its consequences. The social construction of disability assesses and deals with disability from an able bodied perspective. It includes erroneous assumptions about capacity to perform that come from an able bodied frame of reference. It encompasses the failure to make possible or accept different ways of doing things. It reflects a preoccupation with "normalcy" that excludes the disabled person.

Miles To Go: Some Personal Reflections On Social Construction Of Disability, Dianne Pothier

Dianne Pothier Collection

The "social construction" of disability refers to the way an able bodied conception of disability magnifies its consequences. The social construction of disability assesses and deals with disability from an able bodied perspective. It includes erroneous assumptions about capacity to perform that come from an able bodied frame of reference. It encompasses the failure to make possible or accept different ways of doing things. It reflects a preoccupation with "normalcy" that excludes the disabled person.

The Americans With Disabilities Act: Analysis And Implications Of A Second-Generation Civil Rights Statute, Robert L. Burgdorf Jr.

Journal Articles

Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote that our nation's civil rights laws were a "sparse and insufficient collection of statutes ... barely a naked framework."' On their faces, many federal civil rights statutes constitute little more than broad directives that "Thou shalt not discriminate." Broadly worded statements outlawing discrimination were the optimal approach to statutory draftsmanship in light of the controversial nature of the civil rights laws passed in the 1960s and 1970s. The drafters of these statutes needed to craft language that would be palatable to a majority of the members of Congress while still having a meaningful impact …

Improving Handicappers' Civil Rights In Michigan--Preventing Discrimination Through Accommodation, Aldebaran Bouse Enloe

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this Note explains the development of· the current state of handicappers' civil rights law in Michigan, beginning with legislative initiatives and progressing to administrative and judicial decisions. Part II analyzes traditional antidiscrimination theory and suggests how that theory can be adapted to handicappers. By examining hypothetical situations, Part III exposes the disparity between the current state of the law in Michigan and the proposed theoretical analysis and suggests amendments to the MHCRA to reconcile this disparity.

Employee Selection Base On Susceptibility To Occupational Illness, Mark A. Rothstein

Michigan Law Review

This Article attempts to compile the latest information available concerning this difficult problem. Part I reviews the scientific literature, explaining the biological basis of increased risk of occupational disease. Part II explores the efforts of various employers to incorporate this research into their personnel practices. Part III surveys the legal response to these practices. Employees may challenge medical screening on a variety of theories, most of which were not designed to deal with the problem of susceptibility to occupational disease. Not surprisingly, none of the approaches offers an entirely satisfactory response to the problem. This Article offers no clear answers. …