Calif County to Pay $150K settlement

California’s Kern County will pay a deaf woman $150,000 to settle a lawsuit. We first told you abot the lawsuit in October. Jennifer Mello was arrested in 2017 but deputies refused to provide her with a sign language interpreter as required by ADA law. The deputies kept trying to speak to her verbally, she reported. Then Mello was left in jail for five days withot access to an interpreter and appeared in court--again, without an interpreter. Kern County has not agreed to make any policy changes as part of the settlement.

Group home provider settles allegation from deaf resident

The largest group home operator in Virginia for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities has settled a complaint that it violated ADA law by failing to provide sign language interpreters. Good Neighbor Homes will pay $225,000 to the women who did not get an interpreter on numerous occastions and her sister, who interpretered for her, will get $50,000 civil penalty. Read the full story here.

Railroad failed to accommodate deaf conductor

A federal appeals court is unanimously overturning a lower court ruling and reinstating the claim of a deaf train conductor. The lawsuit of Mark Mlsna said Union Pacific Railroad Company did not reasonably accommodate him. Union Pacific had given Mlsna a hearing test which he did not pass without his hearing aids and the company rejected his custom-made hearing protection device. As a result, Mlsna was fired and he filed an ADA-based lawsuit. The suit was dismissed by a district court judge, despite the fact his experience and knowledge as a train conductor was not in dispute. This was overturned with the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling which wrote:

Because genuine issues of fact exist as to whether Union Pacific reasonably accommodated Mlsna’s hearing disability, Union Pacific should not have received summary judgment.

You can read the full final opinion here.

MI company to pay $25K for ADA violations

A Michigan company has agreed to pay $25,000 to settle a federal disability discrimination lawsuit as well as ADA training and reports to the EEOC. The EEOC's lawsuit said Powerlink Facilities Management Services, instead of providing captioning in its orientation videos, didn't allow a deaf employee to begin work for several months. The failure to provide reasonable accommodations was an ADA violation. Read more details from the EEOC here.

ADA law & wearing a mask in a business

Does ADA law require businesses to allow people into stories if the customer has a disability? Some experts say the answer is 'no.' KMIR-TV in Palm Springs has a video report below or read the story here.

Dealership settles ADA lawsuit

A car dealership in Hawaii has agreed to pay $42,000 to settle an EEOC lawsuit accusing it violating ADA law. "The EEOC alleged that Cutter Mazda failed to hire a deaf applicant due to his disability. Such conduct violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which prohibits employers from making employment decisions based on an individual's disability." Read more about it from the EEOC here.

GOP settles ADA lawsuit

Utah's Republican Party has settled a lawsuit filed by a deaf man and a woman who uses a wheelchair. They said the political organization failed to follow ADA law at its conventions and caucuses. Aaron Heineman wanted to participate in a caucus three years ago but the GOP failed to provide a qualified sign language interpreter. Eliza Stauffer said the state convention failed to include a designated area for her wheelchair. Read more about the case from the Daily Herald here.

Hospital reaches agreement in civil rights probe over terps

Detroit's William Beaumont Hospital has settled a civil rights complaint over its violation of ADA law. The facility was accused of failing to adequately provide interpreters for deaf patients. Beaumont refused to admit any wrongdoing, denying it violated ADA law. And yet, it agreed to provide ADA training and enforce policies related to interpreters. The agreement applies to Beaumont's three hospitals and 31 associated health care facilities. Read more about the case in a news release from the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan here.

Myths about making your website accessible

More than 2,250 federal lawsuits were filed against websites for ADA compliance issues in 2018, according to Amihai Miron, who heads User1st, a website accessibility firm. That's triple the number the year before. He says there are six myths related to the ADA issue including the idea that "No one’s complained, so there’s no problem" and "There’s no clear legal standard." Read more at Technical.ly here.

Mocked & Harassed for Being Hard of Hearing

Massachusetts is paying $95,000 to a former employee who says he was mocked and harassed and eventually fired for being hard-of-hearing. Ralph Claudomir worked for the Massachusetts Environmental Police in charge of managing the offices where people register their boats and recreational vehicles. According to MassLive, his request for accommodations was denied" and he was "yelled at during meetings and 'humiliated, degraded and harassed' due to his disability. He was given written warnings for speaking too loudly." Read more about the lawsuit here.

Some Cities Removing Online Documents over ADA lawsuits

The Orlando Sentinal is reporting that three cities in Florida have removed many public documents from the websites because city officials are worried about getting sued over ADA violations. Many officials say they were unaware that the federal law requires government agency accessibility also applies to the web. But since "Nearly 2,000 suits were filed in 2018 alleging website accessibility issues," it is an increasing concern. Read the full story here.

City settles Captioning Lawsuit

Key West, Florida has agreed to add captioning to its meetings—and pay $10k to settled a lawsuit. Eddie Sierra, who is deaf, filed the suit, saying the failure to include captioning is an ADA violation. Read more on the story in the Miami Herald.

Deaf Couple has a Complaint against Delta

A deaf couple say they were discriminated against by Delta Air Lines while in Detroit and ended up missing their flight. In response to their claims Delta released a statement saying it takes "situations like these very seriously and as part of our culture of continuous improvement, we are using this as an opportunity to learn." Socorro Garcia and Melissa Yingst were in Detroit for the National LGBTQ Task Force's Create Change conference. Read more about what happened in a New York Post article here and the San Francisco Gate here. Below is the couple's explanation of what happened.

Deaf comedian Speaks Out about Terp Issue

image from TomWillard.com 

A deaf comedian in Rochester, New York, says he's having difficulty getting local businesses to provide interpreters, as required by ADA law. Tom Willard tells WROC-TV, “They just didn’t want to pay for it. They wanted the comics to pay for the interpreter, but the law says no, it's the business. It’s their responsibility, just like a ramp. You don’t make a wheelchair person bring their own ramp – you don’t make a deaf person bring their own interpreter.” Read the full story here.

What Makes a Website "Accessible"?

U.S. courts have issued conflicting rulings about ADA law and the internet. "As a result, businesses, litigants and the courts have had no governmental rules or guidance to look to for what must be done to a website to make it compliant with the ADA," Charles Marion writes on Law.com. He says one case was dismissed for the lack of government rules on the matter. Read more about how websites and accessibility are a work in progress here.

Utah Republican Party accused ADA violations

Aaron Heineman is suing the Utah Republican Party for failing to provide him a sign language interpreter as promised. He's being joined by Eliza McIntosh Stauffer, "who is paralyzed from the waist down and uses a wheelchair. She says the state party didn’t accommodate her during the GOP state convention in 2016," The Salt Lake Tribune reports. Read the details here.

How Does ADA Law Apply to the Internet?

How the American Disabilities Act applies to the Internet seems like a straightforward question. But the answer has been made complicated by US law and policy over the years since the law was passed. While the general answer would be "yes" Law.com offers this bottom line: There is a..

"gaping hole in the law governing accessibility requirements for websites that are not tied to a traditional “brick-and-mortar” store. For now, whether a particular website—which reaches people nationwide—is a 'public accommodation' under Title III depends upon the location of the court hearing a challenge to its inaccessibility." 

Read the complete analysis here.

A flood of lawsuits over Website Accessibility

Hundreds of companies are facing federal class actions filed in recent months alleging that their websites don't comply with ADA law. CBS News reports that Nike, Burger King, Hershey, Lord & Taylor and Pandora are among those companies facing lawsuits. Read the full story here.

Major Change to ADA Law passed by House

image from CSPAN video of vote on H.R. 620

The House has passed a bill making it more difficult to sue under ADA law. The vote was 225-192. The bill isn't law yet. It still has to get through the Senate and the signature of the President. The proposed law would require businesses to be given six months after being give written notice of non-complience before legal action could be taken. Advocacy groups say it shifts the burden to the person with a disability and away from businesses. The bill's future in the Senate is uncertain. Read more about it in The Hill here and Newsweek here. You can read the text of the bill and other information here.

Protestors with disabilities handcuffed, dragged out of Congress

As we reported yesterday, there is a bill in Congress that would "undermine" the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), according to the ACLU and other advocacy groups. People protesting that proposed law were "dragged from Congress on Tuesday" according to Vice and other media outlets. Here is video of showing U.S. Capitol Police "forcibly removing demonstrators, several of whom had disabilities." Read more in Vice News.

More protesters being pulled out of the Rules committee meeting pic.twitter.com/V6HEIhhZmI

— Joe Perticone (@JoePerticone) February 13, 2018

pic.twitter.com/UJMPsedtjT

— Joe Perticone (@JoePerticone) February 13, 2018

Protesters made it all the way into the Rules committee hearing inside the Capitol. Cops coming in now to take them away pic.twitter.com/N4eblrbpiL

— Joe Perticone (@JoePerticone) February 13, 2018