Why does Kanada hate skinny people?

The high court declined to hear an appeal by Canadian airlines of a decision by the Canadian Transportation Agency that people who are "functionally disabled by obesity" deserve to have two seats for one fare.

Interstate airline travel is specifically excluded from Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by Section 12141(2). Airline travel is instead covered by the Air Carrier Access Act, 49 U.S.C. 1374(c) and the regulations implementing the Act issued by the Department of Transportation as 14 CFR Part 382, et seq. The Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) preceded the ADA, and Congress excluded air carriers and other air transportation services from the scope of ADA. As regulated under 14 CFR §382.38 Seating accommodations (i) "Carriers are not required to furnish more than one seat per ticket or to provide a seat in a class of service other than the one the passenger has purchased."

The implementing regulations, promulgated by the Department of Labor, suggest that obesity is not supposed to be considered a disabling impairment except in rare circumstances. Courts, accordingly, tended to discount ADA claims based on obesity, and many still do, particularly when all that is presented is a plaintiff who is not morbidly obese, or who does not suffer from a physiological disorder causing her to be obese, or one who is simply heavier than average.

Increasingly, however, courts are taking ADA claims based on obesity more seriously. In a 1993 case arising out of Rhode Island, for example, the federal court concluded that, although simple obesity probably would not qualify, morbid obesity caused by a physiological disorder would be a disability entitling the plaintiff to ADA protection. The court's finding was premised on the fact that the disorder was permanent, and that the claimant's weight gain was not meaningfully voluntary. A 1997 decision of the federal district court in New York agreed that morbid obesity could be a qualifying disability, although it denied the plaintiff's claim because she could not demonstrate that her obesity substantially limited her ability to work.

Apparently the EEOC has said that "only morbid obesity, defined as weighing 100 pounds or more over ideal weight, can be an impairment shielded from bias."

And just to chat about it: "disability" generally has been defined as a "substantial limitation on one or more major life activities".  Major life activities are the essentials, like sleeping, eating, working.  Sitting comfortably on an airplane, not so much.

What if you don't have any arms?

Prepare to be invaded.

The link is to an article dealing with Canadian law.