CUNA and Cornerstone League support Texas CU in ADA Suit
CUinsight.com
Credit Union National Association partnered with the Cornerstone Credit Union League to continue its aggressive nationwide defense of credit unions facing frivolous lawsuits. The brief filed on Friday, March 30, supports Local 20 IBEW FCU of Grand Prairie, Texas, which has been sued by a plaintiff alleging website noncompliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Civil Litigation in Employment: So What's it Going to Cost Me?
The National Law Review
When faced with an employment discrimination, harassment or retaliation claim, often the immediate response is, “We are going to defend ourselves and prove we are right,” followed by, “So what will it cost us if we lose?” This article describes the damages available to a prevailing party under the primary federal employment statutes.
To begin, the common denominator is attorney’s fees. In civil litigation, the norm is that each litigant pays for its own attorney’s fees. Under all federal anti-discrimination, anti-harassment and anti-retaliation laws, prevailing employees are entitled to their attorney’s fees. This is known as a fee-shifting law – the fees are shifted to the losing employer. In addition, the employer must pay its own attorney’s fees. Shifting attorney’s fees to the employer raises the stakes since it is not unusual in single plaintiff litigation for attorney’s fees to be more than any potential damages, particularly if you add the cost of defense with the plaintiff’s attorney’s fees.
Another often heard statement from clients is, “I assume if the company wins, we can make the employee pay our fees.” This is correct only in very limited circumstances. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) provide that a court may award the “prevailing party” its attorney’s fees, but courts generally limit recovery against an employee to claims shown to be frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless. This is a very high standard. In other words, employers should not count on the court compelling an employee to pay the employer’s attorney’s fees.
Man alleges location owned by Woo Properties is not ADA compliant
Northern California Record
A wheelchair user alleges that he could not access the facilities at a Los Angeles property because of barriers there.
Chris Langer filed a complaint on March 12 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against Woo Properties, Charles Woo and Does 1-10 citing the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Unruh Civil Rights Act.
According to the complaint, the plaintiff is a paraplegic and is a wheelchair user. He alleges he went to the defendants' property in February to visit Michael's Import to buy party supplies. He alleges the path of travel to the store required navigation of steps and that no ramp was available. He alleges the inaccessible condition denied him full and equal access and caused him embarrassment.
The plaintiff holds Woo Properties, Woo and Does 1-10 responsible because the defendants allegedly failed to remove obvious architectural barriers.
The plaintiff seeks judgment against defendants, actual damages, injunctive relief, attorney's fees, litigation expenses and costs of suit. He is represented by Chris Carson, Ray Ballister Jr., Phyl Grace and Dennis Price of Center for Disability Access in San Diego.
U.S. District Court for the Central District of California case number 2:18-cv-02005
Four current or former residents join ADA lawsuit against Brookdale Senior Living
McKnight's Senior Living
Four current or former assisted living residents of Brookdale Senior Living communities added their names on Thursday to the lawsuit accusing the country's largest senior living community operator of violating the Americans with Disability Act of 1990. They join three other plaintiffs in what their attorneys have said could become the first class action lawsuit against an assisted living provider filed under the ADA.
From an employer's view, hiring jobseekers with disabilities
Atlanta Business Chronicle
Year after year, we read articles referring to “today’s job market.” And yes, many of these pieces are informative, for over the years and at a continuously faster pace, many facets of our job market have changed, from the tools we use, to the speed of the decision-making loop, the increased diversity of fellow coworkers, to being asked to still perform your job while on vacation with family or friends (Thanks, technology). Yet one thing that has not changed is the anxiety that comes with the job interview process, not just for the candidate, but the hiring manager too. As any employer will tell you, poor hires can be costly and can have repercussions for months if not years to come. How do you read between the lines of the résumé to know if an individual is truly the right match?
Large Child Care Company Settles With US Over Policy Of Excluding Kids With Diabetes
Hartford Courant
T he Learning Care Group, which runs 900 child care centers nationally, including four in Connecticut, has agreed to stop refusing to help diabetic kids take their insulin, a policy that federal prosecutors said improperly barred children who could otherwise fully participate in the programs.
The U.S. Department of Justice began investigating the Michigan-based company after eight families outside Connecticut complained that child care centers under the LCG umbrella had dismissed their requests to help administer insulin — considered a reasonable accommodation under the Americans With Disabilities Act. In a settlement reached March 20, the company agreed to pay the eight families $10,000 each, lift its company-wide, blanket refusal policy, consider every child’s application on an individual basis, train executives in federal ADA law, and train center staff members to administer insulin through an insulin pen, syringe, or pump.
The National Law Review
In two rulings arising in Minnesota in March of 2018, federal courts reminded litigants that business owners have various defenses that can effectively shut down so-called “drive by” disability access lawsuits prior to trial.
“Drive by” lawsuits are so named for a suspected practice of plaintiffs or lawyers allegedly driving by businesses to spot visible legal violations without any real intent to patronize those businesses. Finding a perceived violation of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or similar state law, the plaintiff files suit, claiming he or she was unable to patronize the business due to the alleged violation. These cases often settle quickly because the defendants wish to avoid the associated legal expenses that can easily surpass the plaintiffs’ settlement demands. When the parties do litigate these cases, however, business owners often have several defenses available under the ADA, as these two new cases illustrate.
First, in Dalton v. NPC International, Inc., No. 17-4012 (March 20, 2018)—a case in which Ogletree Deakins’ Thomas Henderson successfully represented the defendant—the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota granted the defendant’s motion for summary judgment, dismissing all claims on the grounds that some of the claims were moot and the others were not sufficiently pled in the complaint. Aaron Dalton, who uses a wheelchair, claimed he was prevented from patronizing the defendant’s Pizza Hut restaurant because the accessible parking spaces in the parking lot lacked proper access aisles, the restaurant entrances were not accessible and/or properly identified, and the service counter was too high.
Don't Sleep on Verifying Reasonable Accommodations
Workforce Management
George Hirmiz, a front-desk clerk at a Travelodge Hotel, was caught on video sleeping in the hotel lobby while a fight broke out among its guests.
After the hotel fired him, he claimed disability discrimination. His disability? An alleged illness that he had contracted from long-term exposure to high levels of electromagnetic voltage at the hotel.
Lexology
In recent years, businesses have been inundated with a wave of serial litigation wherein private plaintiffs have argued that websites that are insufficiently compatible with screen reading software are in violation of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”). The typical allegation in such cases is that the plaintiff could not read the website and, as a result, could not access the goods and services offered by the company. These private plaintiffs have taken advantage of the current ambiguity in the law to bring multiple lawsuits. At least two ADA website accessibility claims are on appeal before the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits to hopefully provide clarity to covered entities on what current obligations, if any, they have to make their websites accessible to persons with disabilities.
The newest wave of these lawsuits appear to target any business that contains an online job portal for individuals to browse, review, and/or apply for open positions. The U.S. Department of Justice has issued informal guidance that appears to suggest companies who do not program their job postings to be readable with screen reading software may violate Title I of the ADA which prohibits discrimination in hiring decisions. Potential plaintiffs that are blind and/or visually impaired may use this guidance to argue that this is discriminatory because they are denied the opportunity to browse or apply for open positions.
Title I of the ADA prohibits covered entities from discriminating against an individual with a disability with respect to job application procedures. See 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a). Similarly, California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act prohibits employers from discriminating against potential applicants on the grounds of a physical or mental disability. See California Govt. Code § 12940. Violation of these statutes exposes potential employers to claims of injunctive relief, damages, and attorneys’ fees.
At this time, it is unknown how courts will come out on these claims. Until there is clarity on the law, businesses should consider how a blind and/or visually impaired person can independently browse and review job postings. Good practice would be to ensure that any online job boards are programmed to be compatible with most commercially available screen reading software to ensure that blind and/or visually impaired persons are not inadvertently denied the opportunity to review and apply for those jobs.
Text-to-911 launches in metro Phoenix: 'This will allow me to reach out for services'
AZCentral.com
People who need emergency services in the metro Phoenix area have a new way to ask for help: via text message.
After spending $150,000 on software updates and dispatcher training, the Maricopa County Association of Governments launched text-to-911 capabilities Monday.
"There were other ways that people who were deaf or hard of hearing were able to communicate (with 911), but it wasn’t catching up with technology," Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton said at a news conference Monday. "It wasn’t convenient.
"This is where society is going, and we want to provide the very best public-safety services to everyone," Stanton said.
Disability-rights advocates have pushed for text-to-911 service in the U.S. for years, arguing traditional emergency-dispatch systems put residents with speech, hearing and other disabilities at risk. But because the service isn't mandatory — and upgrades are costly — agencies have been slow to adopt it.
Until Monday, Lake Havasu City was the only Arizona municipality to offer a text option.
San Jose law firm sued over ADA lawsuits
KGO-TV
Michele Bernal co-owns Blossom True Value Hardware in Mountain View-the business has been in the family since the early 70s.
In 2016, she was sued by the Moore Law Firm (since renamed Mission Law Firm).
The firm claimed her store was in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The violations included bathroom signage that was posted too high on the bathroom door and a bathroom railing that was also too high. Some store displays were also blocking aisles.
Cooper medical students with disabilities push for culture change in medicine
WHYY
While a lot has changed since the era before the Americans with Disabilities Act, a recent report from the Association of American Medical Colleges found that the culture and environment surrounding students with disabilities really vary from place to place, with some medical institutions doing far better than others.
Many doctors and students hide disabilities out of a real “fear of judgment, bias, and skewed perception of ability,” the report found.
That may be why just under 3 percent of medical school students have disclosed a disability and, as a result, get accommodations for it. That’s far less than the proportion of Americans with disabilities — nearly one-fifth — and lower still than the percentage of graduate students in other fields.
One major recommendation of the report is that schools have a specialist trained in both disabilities services and medical education.
Come on, Louisville. How can local businesses be more accessible for customers?
The Courier-Journal