Thanks to reader Hugo Cunningham for spotting this in a new Boston Globe report on the failure of the Massachusetts state medical board to post physicians’ disciplinary problems and other performance issues online:
Another major omission has resulted from a Catch-22-like requirement in state law. Russell Aims, the … chief of staff
[of the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine], said the board used to post digital copies of its disciplinary orders [for medical malpractice]. But an online accessibility law requires that documents be available in a text-to-speech format for the visually impaired.
Because the PDF format of the disciplinary records is not compatible with text-to-speech software, Aims said, the law dictates that such records cannot appear in the database. If the visually impaired cannot access the information, then no one can.
Tagged as:
Massachusetts,
medical,
web accessibility
- Supreme Court orders rebriefing in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum case, could address extent of permitted extraterritoriality in Alien Tort Statute [Kenneth Anderson/Volokh quoting John Bellinger, Point of Law featured discussion, Ilya Shapiro on Cato brief]
- UN “food rights” official: trade, investment pacts should not go forward without “human rights impact assessments” [De Schutter; his paternalist food-policy agenda] UN panel reviews Canada’s record on race, lectures on need for more multiculturalism [OHCHR]
- Courts still reluctant to restrain parents’ physical discipline of kids, but UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, for which ratification push is expected in the U.S. this year, could change that [Elizabeth Wilson, ConcurOp]
- Golan v. Holder: “Copyright Case May Have Profound Effect on Treaty Power” [Ilya Shapiro, Jurist]
- Web accessibility litigation spreads to UK [Disability Law, related on role of U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, earlier and background]
- New tone under Ambassador Joseph Torsella: “Obama Comes Around on U.N. Reform” [Brett Schaefer, NRO]
- Reviewing new John Fonte book Sovereignty or Submission, Temple lawprof Peter Spiro contends that trend toward transnational governance isn’t “reversible…. It’s mostly wishful thinking to suppose that we can stick to the vision of the Founders.” [OJ, earlier here, etc., and see chapters 11-12 of Schools for Misrule]
- Dante’s Divine Comedy “offensive and should be banned,” per UN anti-discrimination consultancy [Telegraph]
Tagged as:
Alien Tort Claims Act,
children's rights,
international human rights,
international law,
United Nations,
web accessibility
Assisted by a foundation, Baltimore has proposed putting Nook e-reader devices in some school libraries, but a complaint from the National Federation of the Blind says that would violate Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). [Business Wire]
Tagged as:
Baltimore,
disability & schools,
web accessibility
A Massachusetts federal judge has declined to throw out an ADA suit against Netflix demanding captioning of its streaming movie service, but “stayed the case pending rulemaking by the Federal Communications Commission.” [Qualters, NLJ] Relatedly, Arizona’s largest movie chain will install closed captioning and headset systems in all its outlets following an adverse ruling by the Ninth Circuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). [East Valley Tribune, earlier] Meanwhile, following an audit negotiated in a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, “The city of Tucson may have to find an estimated $17 million to bring many of its facilities into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.” [Star]
Tagged as:
Arizona,
disabled rights,
movies film and videos,
web accessibility
- “Teen beauty queen portrayed as spoiled brat on ‘Wife Swap’ files $100M lawsuit” [NY Daily News]
- “Viva el cupcake!” NYC parents and kids protest the Bloomberg administration’s anti-bake-sale rules [Philissa Cramer, GothamSchools] Bill in Congress would thrust federal government much more deeply into school food issues [Al Tompkins, Poynter]
- For improved disabled access to online resources, look to technical advance, not regulation [Szoka, City Journal]
- “Ministry of Justice Rolls Out New Measures to Reform U.K. Libel Law” [Legal Week/Law.com] “Success Fees in U.K. Libel Cases to Be Slashed by 90 Percent” [same]
- “They’re overlawyered. They’re poisoned by lawyers.” (Markopolos critique of SEC, cont’d) [Gordon Smith, Conglomerate]
- A sentiment open to doubt: Prof. Freedman contends that lawyers’ ethics are higher than doctors’ [Legal Ethics Forum]
- Quotas for women executives in boardroom and top corporate posts spread in Europe. Maybe someday here too? [NYT "Room for Debate"]
- Yes to better indigent criminal defense, no to a court order taking over the subject [Greenfield]
Tagged as:
broadcasters,
ethics,
NYC,
obesity,
racial quotas,
schools,
web accessibility
“Two organizations representing the blind have settled a discrimination lawsuit against Arizona State University over its use of Amazon’s Kindle e-reader device. … The university, which denies the pilot program violates any law, agreed that if it does decide to use e-book readers in future classes over the next two years, ‘it will strive to use devices that are accessible to the blind,’ according to their joint statement.” [AP/ABC News; earlier] Related: Berin Szoka, “An Internet for everyone” [L.A. Times/City Journal]
Tagged as:
Arizona,
colleges and universities,
disability & schools,
disabled rights,
publishers,
web accessibility
- Already-infamous Coakley-for-Senate rape-ad mailer: did they really line up all those photo permissions? [Lopez, NRO] Earlier on photo-permissions legal exposures here, here, here, here, here, here, here, etc.
- “Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Peyton Thomas: Blame the Libertarians!” [Balko, earlier]
- Georgetown lawprof Robin West takes such a rude tone with homeschoolers, it’s enough to make you wonder who brought her up [Common Room, Izzy Lyman/Big Journalism, "The Harms of Homeschooling" (PDF)] Parents charged with child endangerment for homeschooling their kids without submitting lesson plans [Albany Times-Union]
- Videogames and the ADA: “Sony Launches Defense to Gamer’s Equal Access Suit” [OnPoint News, earlier]
- Regulations may spell end for independent New England fishermen [AP/MSNBC, earlier]
- Veteran California pol Willie Brown criticizes civil service entrenchment [Kaus] Government employment has its privileges [Stuart Greenhut, Reason]
- New Jersey appeals court reverses $260K award over student’s fatal window fall at Fairleigh Dickinson U. [Star-Ledger]
- Georgia federal judge orders plaintiff to pay $268K costs of discovery for stretching patent claims [Fulton County Daily Report]
Tagged as:
art and artists,
civil service,
colleges and universities,
disabled rights,
discovery,
loser pays,
Massachusetts,
patent litigation,
Phoenix,
schools,
videogames,
web accessibility
- “A Patient Dies, and Then the Anguish of Litigation” [Joan Savitsky, NYT, more]
- “Kern County’s Monstrous D.A.” [Radley Balko]
- “Former N.Y. Judge Sentenced to 27 Months in Jail for Attempted Bribery” [NYLJ]
- “ADA Online: Is a Website a ‘Place of Public Accommodation’?” [Eric Robinson, Citizen Media Law, background here and here]
- “The New Climate Litigation: How about if we sue you for breathing?” [WSJ editorial]
- Saratoga school district agrees to overregulate, rather than ban, students’ bikes [Free-Range Kids, earlier]
- “Head of BigLaw pro bono department fails to pay income taxes for 10 years? How’s that happen?” [WSJ Law Blog]
- Municipal subprime suits: “The Most ‘Evil’ Lenders Are Also, Conveniently, The Richest” [Kevin Funnell; more at Point of Law]
Tagged as:
medical malpractice,
mortgages,
nonmonetary costs of litigation,
pro bono,
prosecutorial abuse,
web accessibility
- Disturbing implications from Lori Drew case of criminalizing website “terms of service” [Kerr @ Volokh and more; earlier]
- Not quite what lawprof proponents of the class action format had in mind? Proposed law in South Korea “would allow businesses who suffer financial losses due to violent public protests to file class actions” against protesters [Korea Times via Karlsgodt, Class Action Blawg]
- BlockShopper retains high-powered First Amendment attorney to fend off Jones Day’s don’t-blog-about-us suit [Ambrogi; earlier here, etc.]
- New filings in pro wrestlers’ labor suit against WWE [Schwartz; earlier here and here]
- “Brits Propose Potential Life Sentence for Johns” [Balko, Reason "Hit and Run"]
- Narrowing “fair report” privilege, N.J. appeals court decides reporters can be liable for publishing defamatory allegations in court filing, while lawyers still immunized when they put those allegations there [Feral Child, Media Law, CT Blue; Salzano v. North Jersey Media Group, PDF]
- It’ll be hard to live up to some of the high praise for my new web project with Heather Mac Donald, John Derbyshire, Razib Khan et al, Secular Right [D.R. Tucker, Human Events "Right Angle"; some other reactions]
- Late in catching up on this, but Target in August agreed to pay $6 million to settle the big lawsuit over accessibility of its website to blind users [The Recorder; Ben Duranske discusses implications for virtual online worlds]
Tagged as:
class actions,
Heather Mac Donald,
libel slander and defamation,
New Jersey,
publishers,
United Kingdom,
web accessibility
The Department of Justice regards online tutoring services as “public accommodations” subject to the Americans with Disabilities Act, and in September entered into a consent decree with Sylvan Learning Centers, which agreed to provide aids such as written materials and “videotext displays” (as well as free sign-language interpreters) for the assistance of deaf persons who might wish to use its services. As TechLaw Journal notes (Sept. 26-30), and as we have often noted before in our ongoing coverage, there is reason to expect the legal pressure for web accessibility to extend to online businesses more generally.
Tagged as:
disabled rights,
schools,
web accessibility
- Pearson Pants update: dry cleaners offered to drop their fee demand if Pearson would end case, but he declined [Marc Fisher, other Washington Post coverage, Beldar]
- Check your oil, ma’am? On second thought, if it’s going to get us sued, never mind [Reiland/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review]
- “Surprising and uncommon” resolution of med-mal case: Nebraska Methodist Health System admits error, cooperates with family on video memorializing victim and educating other hospitals about aortic dissection [Omaha World-Herald, Chamber reprint]
- Heated email exchange between perennial Overlawyered favorite Jack Thompson and Take Two game company exec [Ambrogi]
- Putting her image on a Hallmark card? Now that’s degrading and exploitative enough to make Paris Hilton want to sue [K.C. Star]
- Uncle sues nephew over season tickets to Chicago Bears at 40-yard line [Crain's Chicago Business]
- Hurt her teeth on McDonald’s cherry pie, hurt her teeth on cheeseburger soon after — and what’s this about forged dental-work receipts? [Seattle Times]
- Wisconsin snuff users may soon be rolling in coupons following settlement of antitrust class action, lawyers to pocket $17 million [AP/Green Bay Press-Gazette]
- New at Point of Law: fiasco of UC Irvine’s withdrawn offer to Chemerinsky; judge says $500/hr is enough for lawyers in Northwest bankruptcy; law firm advertises for heart attack victims to sue over lack of defibrillators in public places; Astroturf detected in Washington-state insurance-suit referendum fight; NY Times takes skeptical look at Mount Sinai’s Selikoff Center; Jerry Brown sure fooled us, says San Diego paper; Ted expands his empire; and much more;
- A topic on which we’ve had a lot to say over the years — to what extent does the Americans with Disabilities Act apply to websites? — may be heating up again [Corporate Counsel]
- Thanks for the incoming links from, among others, Instapundit (on Ted’s reclining-car-seat post, which has drawn a bodacious number of comments), Patterico (on Jarek Molski), Bainbridge (on animal welfare laws), and Adam Smith Institute (on lawyers suing each other: “Such a pity that only one side can lose”.)
Tagged as:
antitrust,
bankruptcy,
coupon settlements,
hospitals,
Jack Thompson,
Jarek Molski,
Jerry Brown,
Nebraska,
Roy Pearson,
Seattle,
web accessibility,
Wisconsin
- My informal debate with Professor Silver over the effect of reform on physician supply continues. [Point of Law; Silver]
- If you’ve been intrigued by Professor E. Volokh’s idea of medical self-defense (and thus payment for organs) as a constitutional right, he’ll be discussing it with Richard Epstein and Jeffrey Rosen at AEI. [Volokh; Harvard Law Review @ SSRN; AEI]
- Peter Wallison on how over-regulation and over-litigation is killing American competitiveness in the capital markets. [Wall Street Journal @ AEI]
- Press coverage is finally starting to break through in the Milberg Weiss scandal with a lengthy Fortune profile. [Point of Law]
- Economists and scholars file Supreme Court amicus brief calling for federal preemption of state “anti-predatory lending laws” in important Watters v. Wachovia case. [Zywicki @ Volokh; CEI]
- One-sided coverage by the New York Times on the issue of web accessibility for the blind. Earlier: Oct. 27; Feb. 8. [New York Times]
- Deep Pocket Files update: MADD tries to intervene in stadium vendor case where appellate court tossed $105 million verdict because of unfair trial. See Aug. 4 and links therein. [New Jersey Law Journal]
- Lawsuit: my dead father’s baseball card mischaracterizes his nickname. [Lattman]
- Lawsuit: I have legal right to the letter W. [Times Record News via Bashman]
- Samuel Abady and Harvey Silverglate on libel tourism. [Boston Globe via Bashman]
- Another roundup of Justice Robert Thomas libel lawsuit stories. [Bashman]
- $15M Minnesota verdict blaming a delayed delivery for cerebral palsy, despite evidence it was caused by an unrelated infection. [Pioneer Press]
Tagged as:
baseball,
deep pocket,
libel slander and defamation,
MADD,
Milberg Weiss,
Minnesota,
New Jersey,
Richard Epstein,
roundups,
web accessibility
For aficionados of one-sided litigation coverage, here’s a lulu from the Associated Press. It’s an article on the lawsuit (National Federation of the Blind v. Target) seeking to establish that companies violate the Americans with Disabilities Act when they do not design their websites so as to make them “accessible” to users who are blind, deaf, lacking in motor skills needed for mouse use, etc. The article fails to mention the courts’ rejection of the disabled rights groups’ position in the Southwest Airlines case, though it’s the major existing precedent on the point. And aside from a ritual and uninformative denial by the retailer defendant Target that it is liable, the article presents as uncontroversial the demand that non-accessible websites be declared unlawful, with not a hint of why anyone might consider it a thoroughly disastrous idea. Oh, wait: the article does incorporate a bit of controversy, by recording worries that a victory for the plaintiffs in the Target case might not go far enough and come out being “read too narrowly. Not every business or Web site is subject to the Americans with Disabilities Act, said [Washington, D.C. lawyer] John D. Kemp”. (Seth Sutel, “Blind Web surfers sue for accessibility”, AP/San Jose Mercury-News, Oct. 24).
Tagged as:
disabled rights,
Southwest Airlines,
web accessibility
In San Francisco, federal judge Marilyn Hall Patel has allowed a lawsuit by the National Federation of the Blind to go forward against the Target Corp., charging that the retailer’s website, Target.com, is insufficiently “accessible” to blind users. Websites are considered accessible to blind users when they (e.g.) include summaries or transcripts for audio/video elements and alt-text for images, while avoiding designs that require users to rely on graphic elements for navigation. Disabled-rights groups had suffered a serious setback a few years ago in their legal campaign to enforce web accessibility, when a court ruled that Southwest Airlines was not liable for the inaccessibility of its online ticket reservation system to some handicapped users. However, Judge Patel (regarded as relatively liberal by the standards of the federal bench) distinguished that case on the grounds that the Target website had more of a “nexus” to physical Target stores than did the airline’s ticketing site. (“Target can be sued if Web site inaccessible to blind, judge says”, AP/Houston Chronicle, Sept. 7; Bob Egelko, “Ruling on Web site access for blind”, San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 8; Sheri Qualters, “Discrimination Case Opens Door to Internet ADA Claims”, National Law Journal/Law.com, Sept. 28; Slashdot thread). The ruling, in PDF format, is here (courtesy Howard Bashman, who also rounds up other links).
Longtime readers will recall that I’ve been much involved in the web-accessibility controversy over the years. Some links: my May 2000 column for Reason on the subject; various posts on this site, 1999-2002; my House testimony of Feb. 2000; Jan. 8, 2004. And this site’s earlier coverage of the Target case provoked one of the biggest comments discussions ever (Feb. 28, 2006).
Tagged as:
disabled rights,
Houston,
Southwest Airlines,
technology,
web accessibility
Per the WSJ Law Blog (Feb. 7): The National Federation of the Blind (NFB), represented by Berkeley’s Disability Rights Advocates as well as two law firms, has sued discounter Target, alleging that it violates California disabled-rights law because its website is not operable by blind computer users. “The suit charges that the site lacks, for instance, compliant alt-text, an invisible code embedded beneath graphics that allows blind users to decipher images. The suit also contends that because the Web site requires the use of a mouse to complete a transaction, blind customers are unable to make purchases on their own.” As longterm readers of this site know, demands for website accessibility under the ADA and similar laws have been simmering for years; in 2002 a federal court turned down such a claim with respect to Southwest Airlines’ website, and two years ago (Jan. 8, 2004) a NFB activist said disability advocates were biding their time, waiting for the right case to reopen the issue. It sounds as if the Target lawsuit may be that case. (& welcome readers of John Dvorak, who calls us “the always entertaining Overlawyered.com”).
More: at WebStandards.org, one enthusiast for the lawsuit says that it also calls into question the practices of Amazon.com, whose shopping engine, according to this commentator, powers the Target site. As I discovered when I started writing on this subject six years ago, many advocates of “web accessibility” seem quite surprised to learn that anyone actually disagrees with them on the merits of the matter, as opposed to just not being well enough informed about it. And: coverage in Law.com’s Recorder (Matthew Hirsch, “Suit Alleges Target Denies Blind Access to Online Shopping”, Feb. 14).
Tagged as:
disabled rights,
online speech,
Southwest Airlines,
web accessibility
