Ruling in the case of an employee who was terminated after he was medically disqualified from returning to his job, and who was unable to find another suitable position with the employer, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit says that the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments passed in 2008 does not retroactively apply to disability discrimination claims.

A lower court had found that the employee was not actually disabled under the pre-amended ADA, and this determination was appealed in light of the broader definition of what constitutes a “disability” under the ADAA. The D.C. Circuit agrees with the employer’s argument that by delaying the effective date of the ADAA, “Congress clearly indicated the statute would apply only from January 1, 2009 forward.”

“If the Congress intended merely to ‘clarify’ the ADA, then its decision to delay the effective date would make no sense; it would needlessly have left the ADA unclear for the more than three months between enactment of the ADAA on September 25, 2008 and its going into effect on January 1, 2009,” the D.C. Circuit notes, adding: “Nothing on the face of the statute indicates the Congress intended this peculiar scenario.”