Since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 USC ��12101-12213 (ADA), more than a decade ago, employers have struggled to find clear, bright-line interpretation of the law. Throughout this period, courts have been continuously sorting out the often elusive meaning of the statute’s most basic requirements. However, the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky Inc. v. Williams, 122 S.Ct. 681 (2002), should help to clarify some of the confusion as to at least one seminal issue: the scope of the ADA provisions requiring reasonable accommodations of disabilities.
In Toyota, the Supreme Court rejected the notion that a physical impairment, which merely inhibits an employee from performing certain work-related tasks qualifies the employee as “disabled” within the meaning of the ADA. Rather, the ADA requires an employee to demonstrate that he or she is affected by a long-term or permanent impairment that renders the employee “unable to perform the variety of tasks central to most people’s daily lives,” not just certain tasks associated with the employee’s specific job.
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