Suit settled over handicapped-accessible housing
Jackson Clarion Ledger
Developers of six housing complexes in Mississippi have agreed to make the apartments and condominiums more accessible to people with disabilities.
The Justice Department filed a lawsuit in May 2014 against Ike W. Thrash, Dawn Properties Inc., Southern Cross Construction Company Inc. and other affiliated companies, saying they had violated the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Justices deny transfer of CHINS ADA case with 3-2 vote
Indiana Lawyer
The Indiana Supreme Court has denied transfer of a case in which a father argued that the Department of Child Services’ failure to comply with the American with Disabilities Act when providing discretionary services should void the termination of his parental rights. However, two justices dissented from that decision, writing that DCS should always be required to comply with the ADA, not just when providing mandatory services, and that any non-compliance should be grounds for a defense.
In an order posted Friday, Justices Mark Massa and Geoffrey Slaughter and Chief Justice Loretta Rush denied transfer in the case of In the Termination of the Parent-Child Relationship of N.C. and A.C.; A.C. v. Indiana Department of Child Services, Child Advocates, Inc., 49A02-1510-JT-01711. The case was on appeal from the Indiana Court of Appeals, which decided in June that the ADA does not apply in termination of parental rights proceedings.
A.C., the father in the case whose parental rights to his son, N.C., a child in need of services, were terminated, had argued that DCS had failed to accommodate his cognitive and mental disabilities and his status as a deaf man, and that such failure is a defense. The Court of Appeals disagreed, as did the majority of justices.
However, Justice Steve David wrote in a dissenting opinion that he would have granted transfer in the case and specifically referenced the case of Stone v. Daviess County Division of Children and Family Services, 656 N.E.2d 824 (Ind. Ct. App. 1995), which the appellate court had used as precedent in its decision.
David wrote that he disagreed with a portion of the Stone decision that found that “any alleged noncompliance with the ADA by (DCS) in the provision of services … would be a matter separate and distinct from the operation of our termination statute.”
“In my view, whether DCS is required to provide services or merely exercise its discretion to do so makes no difference; in either case, if DCS is, in fact, providing services it must comply with the ADA and failure to comply with the ADA should be grounds to challenge the termination proceeding,” David wrote. “To hold otherwise would deny disabled parents meaningful relief.”
Instead, David said his opinion aligned more closely with that of the Utah Supreme Court in the case of State in Interest of K.C., 2015 UT 92, 21, 362 P.3d 1248, 1252-53 (Utah 2015). In that opinion, the Utah high court wrote that it rejected the notion “that the ADA may be invoked only as a separate cause of action in an independent proceeding – and not as a defense or other means of altering a service plan by a parent in a termination proceeding. An independent claim for damages would be an inadequate remedy for alleged discrimination in the provision of reunification services for a parent, especially given the fundamental right to parent at stake in such proceedings.”
Although David wrote that he believed DCS had reasonably accommodated A.C., he wrote that he would have granted transfer in the case and “hold that a disabled parent may use non-compliance with the ADA as a defense to the termination of his or her parental rights where DCS has provided discretionary services, but failed to provide reasonable accommodations to a disabled parent.”
Justice Robert Rucker concurred with David’s dissent.
Movie Theaters Target Of New ADA Mandate
Disability Scoop-
The Obama administration is implementing a new regulation that will require the nation’s movie theaters to do more to accommodate people with disabilities.
Under a final rule published in the Federal Register this month, theaters will be required to provide closed captioning and audio description for any digital movie that is distributed with such accessibility features.
Though the Americans with Disabilities Act has long mandated auxiliary aids and similar accommodations at public facilities, the U.S. Department of Justice said it moved to clarify the obligations of movie theaters in response to widespread complaints from the disability community about the lack of captioning and audio description at cinemas across the country.
The new regulation is more than six years in the making and since the Justice Department first signaled in 2010 that a rule would be forthcoming, the agency said it has received more than 1,500 comments on the issue.
“The disability community and movie theater industry provided comprehensive insight on this important regulation,” said Vanita Gupta, head of the agency’s Civil Rights Division. “The Justice Department’s regulation establishes a nationally consistent standard and ensures that, in theaters across the country, people with hearing and vision disabilities can fully enjoy watching movies with their families and friends.”
To comply, theaters must make equipment available at a person’s seat so that captioning or audio description is only available to the individual who requests it. In addition, movie theaters are required to notify the public of the availability of such technology and have staff on hand to assist with the equipment.
Theaters that show only analog movies are exempt from the new mandate. There are also exceptions for circumstances in which complying with the regulation “would result in an undue burden or a fundamental alteration.”
The new rule will take effect Jan. 17, 2017 and movie theaters must be in compliance by June 2, 2018.
ADA Part I: Ensure Stores are Accessible
Lexology
In order to help retailers improve access to all customers and reduce potential liability, this is the first in a three-part series offering tips for compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). This week we offer tips to improve access to brick-and-mortar stores and their facilities.
Title III of the ADA prohibits discrimination against individuals “on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages or accommodations of any place of public accommodation,” which includes retail stores.
Allegations concerning the accessibility of parking spaces, entrances and aisles, checkout and sales counters, and restrooms continue to attract the most ADA lawsuits. Detailed federal regulations covering all of these areas appear in the 2010 Standards for Accessible Design (ADA Standards), and state building codes may provide additional requirements. ADA requirements may differ depending on the construction date of your stores, and alterations and remodeling may trigger an obligation to comply with more recent ADA regulations.
What the Americans with Disabilities Act Means for Your Website
Business 2 Community
Some of the next major hurdles for web developers in the near future won’t be
exclusive to coming up with the next cutting-edge design or transcendent functional experience, but making sure that the digital equivalents of handrails and wheelchair ramps are properly installed. With 1 out of 5 Americans living with a disability along with a significant portion of the population’s web users getting older, businesses will need to assess whether their offerings are adequately within the reach of consumers with accessibility needs. And while having an accessible website could make for a strong business case, adherence to accessibility may soon be the official law of the web.
CBS News
Thousands of lawsuits have been filed in the U.S. for violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, but many business owners say they're nothing more than a shakedown
Students with learning disabilities feel well accommodated at TCU
TCU 360
While some college students enjoy sitting at the back of their classrooms, junior Chris Dorr sits at the very front. Dorr receives preferential seating in order to accommodate his learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
“During quizzes and other assignments, if I see people it kind of makes me anxious, like ‘Oh, they’re finished, why am I not finished?’” he said.
Dorr is one of 404 TCU students currently receiving an accommodation for a learning disability.
According to the 1990 Americans With Disabilites Act, a learning disability is a “neurologic disorder that causes difficulties in learning that cannot be attributed to poor intelligence, poor motivation or inadequate teaching.”
US, Georgia fail to resolve GNETS case out of court
Atlanta Journal Constitution (blog)
Settlement talks are off – for now – in the federal lawsuit alleging the illegal segregation of disabled students in Georgia’s psychoeducational school network.
Lawyers for the state and the U.S. Department of Justice met last Monday but failed to resolve the case, according to court papers.
They were trying to settle a dispute over the Georgia Network for Educational and Therapeutic Services, the state’s one-of-a-kind school system for students with intellectual and behavioral disabilities.
The Justice Department filed suit last summer, alleging the state violates the Americans with Disabilities Act by segregating several thousand disabled children each year in GNETS. Those children are denied an opportunity to attend classes with students who are not disabled, the lawsuit said, and the programs’ instructional quality is lacking.
Federal authorities allege some students have been assigned to GNETS schools with no gyms, cafeterias, libraries or science labs. Others have been placed in dilapidated buildings once used to segregate African-American students during the Jim Crow era.
The state has asked U.S. District Judge Eleanor L. Ross in Atlanta to dismiss the suit, contending the Justice Department has neither jurisdiction to enforce the ADA nor the standing to sue the state under the act’s provisions.
A settlement is still possible without a trial, both sides told the judge. But no more talks are scheduled until after the parties evaluate evidence gathered through the discovery process. No time frame was included in recent court filings.
Among the information the Justice Department wants is demographic information about students in GNETS and those “at risk of placement” in the program. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported earlier this year that Georgia schools assign a disproportionate number of black children to GNETS, a majority of whom have the vague diagnosis of “emotional and behavioral disorder.”
The state wants to know more details about the allegations the Justice Department made in the lawsuit and in an earlier report alleging discrimination against GNETS students.
Both sides agreed the case is complex, because of a “greater than normal volume of evidence” and the “multiple use of experts.”
Another complicating factor: the change in administrations in Washington.
The suit was filed by the Justice Department’s civil rights division. The division’s head is a political appointee, and it may be months before a replacement is nominated and confirmed by the Senate.
Under the Obama administration, the civil rights division aggressively enforced anti-discrimination statutes. Whether the new regime continues that approach is a matter of conjecture.
Deaf parolee alleges he was never provided aids or interpreters
The Louisiana Record
A deaf parolee alleges he was discriminated against because he was not provided an interpreter or aids when communicating with his parole officer.
James Roger Bradley filed a complaint on Nov. 9 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana against state of Louisiana through the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections and Michael D. Edmonson alleging that they violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act.