Banks’ failure to comply with automatic-teller accessibility rules could open up a “goldmine for professional plaintiffs,” thinks Kevin Funnell. [Bank Lawyers’ Blog] More: Cohen/Atlas.
Banks’ failure to comply with automatic-teller accessibility rules could open up a “goldmine for professional plaintiffs,” thinks Kevin Funnell. [Bank Lawyers’ Blog] More: Cohen/Atlas.
7 Comments
10 years to comply and they still don’t? If plaintiff attorneys are not going to be able to sue for compliance, how will we ever ensure that the banks comply? Government regulators? This is a case of captured regulators, so it would not happen.
Comply with what, Allen? One poor fellow in California had his bathroom mirror an inch or so too high and was fined with being out of compliance. If that is what you mean, then please get a different cause.
But many have complied…..which still leaves the question unanswered of why drive-up ATM’s have buttons in Braille.
Melvin –drive up ATMs can be used by visually impaired either by walking up on foot, or by being a passenger in the back seat. There’s no excuse today, 20 years after ADA was passed, for inaccessible ATMs. It’s not difficult from a tech standpoint to accomplish this.
William — your pt may be relevant to the legal situation in general, but that case and like cases are not relevant to ATM requirements.
My pt is relevant in that my non-ATM example shows that compliance can be silly at times, although the matter is very serious to the guy who was fined. Knowing compliance can be misused puts the onus on Allan to show the non-compliance not to be silly.
Drive up windows are designed to be used by the car diver. The blind passenger could be in the back seat I suppose. Anyway, the driver can easily push the buttons for his blind passenger. Braille would help only those blind people (0.4 %) who use ATMs (I don’t) and can not find a trusted driver. The benefit to having Braille on drive up ATMs can not be commensurable to the cost. The same logic applies to curb cuts on sidewalks with modest to steep grades. The wheelchair people for whom the curb cuts are intended would soon be air-born if they were foolish enough to use such sidewalks. ADA should be eliminated entirely, in my opinion.
I’m not even sure the Braille buttons do much to help the blind. It’s like the restroom and exit signs in my office that have the legends in English and Braille. I have never seen a blind person fondling the signs to learn that smoking is prohibited.
It is largely theatre and a source for predators to attack businesses.
William and Mannie,
The law may be silly, but it is the law. An inch is an inch.
there are a lot of silly laws on the book. for example, at 3 am on a deserted street, why do I need to stop at a red light and wait for green?
That the law is silly is not the issue here. The issue is whether we should blame the plaintiff’s bar from filing suits to ensure the law is enforced. On the one hand, the individual attorneys should not be in the business of enforcing these laws. On the other hand, there is no-one else to do it.