World's first: Sesame Enable is a hands-free smartphone for the disabled
Mobiletor.com
Designed by people with disabilities, for people with disabilities, is how the Sesame Enable has been introduced by the folks who have crafted it and have brought it out into the open. This unique smartphone is basically a modified Nexus 5 which can be controlled by gestures and voice rather than touch.
The makers of the Sesame Enable have revealed that they have crafted the new technology for those who can move their hands in a limited manner or can’t move them at all. They can then use their voice or head movements to control the functions of the handset.
Project Civic Access Agreement: Washington County, Missouri
New Hampshire employee's ADA claims over adjustable table fail
HR.BLR.com
An employee worked as an assembler at a medical device manufacturing company in Laconia. In 1997, she notified her employer that she has fibromyalgia, a condition marked by pain and fatigue throughout the body. She later gave her employer a physician's note stating that she might "not be able to stand or extend her head for a regular [workday] on some days due to pain and fatigue."
One day, the employee arrived at work to find maintenance workers replacing her adjustable hydraulic workstation table with a stationary table. After her employer did not return the adjustable table, which the employee contended she needed to accommodate her fibromyalgia pain, she resigned and brought claims of discrimination and retaliation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Cabbie Loses ADA Suit After Refusing Ride to Service Dog
Connecticut Law Tribune
As a taxi driver recently learned, being afraid of dogs is not a legally valid excuse for refusing to pick up a disabled person with a service animal.
Mansoor Ahmad was fired from his job in 2011 for doing just that. In response, in a pair of lawsuits in both state and federal court, Ahmad claimed he was discriminated against because of his own disability: a fear of dogs.
On June 10, 2011, Ahmad was in his taxi waiting in line to pick up passengers at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks. When it was his turn to pick up a fare, Ahmad pulled up to the curb and saw the passenger was a person with a service dog. As he had previously been bitten by a dog, he refused to allow the passenger into his cab.
An airport taxi dispatcher who worked for the Connecticut Department of Transportation called the police. Ahmad and his father, who was driving a separate taxi for the company and who had come to his son's defense, were both detained by police and subsequently fired.
In 2012, Ahmad filed separate lawsuits against the Yellow Cab Co. of New London Inc. and the Department of Transportation, which took Ahmad's taxi license. Judges who were called on to review those lawsuits—one in state and the other in federal court—came to the same conclusions and dismissed all claims.
On Feb. 6, Superior Court Judge Nina Elgo agreed that a fear of dogs is a recognized mental disability under the DSM-5 diagnostic manual of standards used by the courts. However, she stated, it does not protect someone who refuses services to—or who denies access to—another person with a disability. Under state and federal law, the judge wrote, Ahmad's employment prohibited him from refusing to provide taxi service to individuals with service dogs.
DeKalb pays 50K for site redesign
Northern Star Online-
DeKalb is undergoing a $50,570 website renewal project — a project $30,570 over budget — to comply with standards set by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
First ward Alderman David Jacobson said the renewal of the city’s website has been in discussion and a priority for several years, but a push from the federal government is what is now moving things along. The Department of Justice informed the city in 2013 that its website did not comply with standards set by the Americans with Disabilities Act and set a June 11, 2015, deadline for the website to meet the act’s requirements.
Offering advice on how not to get sued for ADA violations
News10.net
Brad Peters advises Manteca businesses on access violations so they can avoid being sued.
State Program Favoring Disabled Workers Stirs Debate
MyHighPlains