EEOC Showing Late Summer Spike in Discrimination Suits

Law.com
The National Law Journal
September 02, 2011
Jenna Greene

There's no such thing as dog days of summer at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In the final 10 days of August, the agency burst into action, filing 15 discrimination suits targeting major companies, including Ford Motor Co., Kohl's Department Stores, air transporter SITA Information Networking Computing USA, Inc., as well as the government of American Samoa. The cases against Ford, SITA and Kohl's all involve alleged violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act, an increasingly sticky area of employment law.Led by chair Jacqueline Berrien, the EEOC finalized regulations implementing amendments to the Americans With Disabilities Act in March, widening the definition of who is considered disabled. The 2008 amendments overturned several Supreme Court decisions that Congress believed interpreted the definition of "disability" too narrowly, denying protection for people with impairments like cancer, diabetes or epilepsy.

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