The D word: What people who stutter can learn from the disability community

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Re: Should each person who stutters be labeled as having a disabi...

From: David Steiner
Date: 16 Oct 2012
Time: 11:16:58 -0500
Remote Name: 149.101.1.118

Comments

Excellent question, Lauryn. Legally, the answer is no. No court has held that a PWS is a PWD. In other words, stuttering is not a per se disability in the way that bindness, deafness, or muteness is. There have only been two courts which have found that the stuttering plaintiff MIGHT qualify as a PWD if a jury so found. These cases are Andresen v. Fuddruckers and Medvic v. Compass Sign Co. Both cases, however, were dismissed before reaching a jury as the judges were clearly trying to force a settlement. In all the other cases, the courts have held that as a matter of law, the stutterer was not covered by the ADA. Joe Biden, who was a keynote speaker at the NSA Convention in Blatimore and one of the senators who voted on the ADA said, when asked that question, that he did not think the ADA covered stuttering. Nevertheless, it is certainly imaginable that somewhare at sometime a stutterer may win an ADA case but his/her stutter would probably have to be quite severe. I had thought that this was going to change after Congress amended the ADA in 2008 but so far, the courts have continued to find that the ADA does not apply.


Last changed: 10/22/12