Reasonable Accommodation and Reassignment under the Americans with Disabilities Act: Answers, Questions, and Suggested Solutions after U.S. Airways, Inc. v. Barnett

The enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act ( ADA ) has triggered a series of explosions over the past decade. Although enacted with widespread support, the statute almost immediately spawned a deluge of litigation. This litigation explosion, coupled with the rather imprecise language of the statute, resulted in a startling diversity of judicial interpretation on a host of key ADA issues. These two phenomena, in turn, have led to a more recent explosion in ADA cases heard by the Supreme Court. In a brief span from 1998 to 2002, the Supreme Court issued no less than thirteen decisions interpreting the ADA. Indeed, employment-based ADA cases accounted for slightly more than 22% of all labor and employment cases decided during the Court\u27s 2001-2002 term