Americans with Disabilities Act Timeline

The Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990 requires that all televisions larger than 13 inches sold in the United States after July 1993 have a special built-in decoder that enables viewers to watch closed-captioned programming.

Image source: Closed captioning

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 directed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt rules requiring closed captioning of most television programming.

The FCC's rules on closed captioning became effective January 1, 1998, requiring captioning of most television programming pursuant to the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Ellerbe Becket Architects and Engineers (PVA 1996) was focused on the wheelchair accessibility of a stadium project still in design phase—the MCI Center (now Capital One Arena) in Washington, D.C. The settlement required the stadium to add 329 wheelchair seats throughout by 2010, plus an additional 135 accessible seats in clubhouses alongside the existing 88 wheelchair seats.

Image source: Capital One Arena

Under 2010 revisions of Department of Justice regulations, newly constructed or altered swimming pools, wading pools, and spas must have an accessible means of entrance and exit for disabled people. Full compliance may not be required for existing facilities; Sections 242 and 1009 of the 2010 Standards outline such exceptions.

Between 1991 (after the enactment of the ADA) and 1995, the employment rate of men with disabilities dropped by 7.8% regardless of age, educational level, or type of disability, with the most affected being young, less-educated and intellectually disabled men.

Through the end of fiscal year 1998, 86% of the 106,988 ADA charges filed with and resolved by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission were either dropped or investigated and dismissed by EEOC, but not without imposing opportunity costs and legal fees on employers.

Policy updates, such as the 2014 Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), emphasized integrated employment and strengthened affirmative action for federal contractors under Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act.

HealthTexas Medical Group (begun in 1998) was the first time the act was used against HMOs when Texas attorney Robert Provan filed a novel lawsuit against five HMOs for their practice of revoking the contracts of doctors treating disabled patients.

A US Supreme Court case in 1999 held that an employee was not disabled if the impairment could be corrected by mitigating measures. This ruling was later legislatively overturned by the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, which provides that such impairment must be determined without considering such ameliorative measures.

Image source: Sutton v. United Air Lines, Inc.

Bates v. United Parcel Service, Inc. (begun in 1999) was the first equal opportunity employment class action brought on behalf of Deaf and Hard of Hearing workers throughout the country concerning workplace discrimination. The Department of Justice assisted in the suit, which was settled in March 2008.

In 1999, the HealthTexas Medical Group HMOs sought to dismiss Provan's lawsuit, but a federal court ruled against them, and the case was settled out of court.

Barden v. City of Sacramento, filed in March 1999, claimed that the City of Sacramento failed to comply with the ADA when, while making public street improvements, it did not bring its sidewalks into compliance with the ADA.

In a 2002 case, the District Court decided that the website of Southwest Airlines was not in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, because the ADA is concerned with things with a physical existence and thus cannot be applied to cyberspace.

US Airways, Inc. v. Barnett was decided by the US Supreme Court in 2002, addressing whether an employer must reassign a disabled employee to a vacant position as a reasonable accommodation under the ADA.

Tennessee v. Lane, 541 U.S. 509 (2004), was a case in the Supreme Court of the United States involving Congress's enforcement powers under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. George Lane was unable to walk after a 1997 car accident in which he was accused of driving on the wrong side of the road, and was forced to crawl up courthouse stairs.

A 2005 case concerned the enforceability of a mandatory arbitration agreement contained in a dispute resolution policy linked to an e-mailed company-wide announcement, insofar as it applies to employment discrimination claims brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Green v. State of California (decided August 23, 2007) was a case in which the California Supreme Court was faced with deciding whether an employee suing the state must prove they are able to perform 'essential' job duties regardless of reasonable accommodation, or if the employer must prove the person suing was unable to do so.

In 2011, a court held that a mere online presence does not subject a website to the ADA guidelines, contributing to an ongoing circuit split over web accessibility.

Authors Guild v. HathiTrust (2014) was a case in which the District Court decided that the HathiTrust digital library was a transformative, fair use of copyrighted works, making a large number of written texts available to those with print disabilities.

Image source: Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust

In October 2019, the Supreme Court declined to resolve a circuit split as to whether websites are covered by the ADA, leaving uncertainty about web accessibility obligations.

In 2022, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit stated that the ADA covers individuals with gender dysphoria, which may aid transgender people in accessing legal protections they otherwise may be unable to obtain.

Laufer was a 2023 Supreme Court case regarding whether 'tester' plaintiffs—individuals who never sought to patronize the defendant business but sued for noticed violations anyways—have standing to sue under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Image source: The Birth of a Nation