Reversing a trial court, the Third Circuit has ruled that a deaf/blind man can sue Cinemark under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) demanding that it provide a “tactile interpreter” so that he could experience the movie Gone Girl. Each interpreter — two would be required because of the movie’s feature length — would narrate the film in American Sign Language (ASL) while McGann placed his hand in contact with theirs to read the signs. The appellate judges rejected the argument that because of the need for subjective stylistic judgments about how to describe the movie’s action, on-the-fly translation would “fundamentally alter the nature of the good, service, facility, privilege, advantage, or accommodation being offered,” an exception recognized by the law to its accommodation requirement. It sent the case back for further proceedings on whether the theater could plead “undue hardship,” a narrow defense that is often unavailable to large businesses which (it is argued) can cover even very high costs of accommodation by using revenues earned from other patrons [McGann v. Cinemark]
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Inherently life is unfair. That’s the way it is, and the way it always will be.
The ADA, while in its nascent stages well meaning, has morphed into a way for fortune seeking bullies, disabled or otherwise, to extort treasure and energy from businesses of all types and sizes. “Reasonable Accommodation: has changed into “Accommodation at All Costs and Regardless of Cost.” It is an avenue for fraud, and a notion that ultimately is bankrupting,
Cases like this, absurd cases that ought not ought to be considered, illustrate that the ADA is past due for an overhaul. A simple solution, probably the best, is to apply the ADA only to public properties, and leave the private properties and businesses alone.
As the ADA Mills seek to ever extend their fraudulent reach, that push back against the law and its abuses will doubtless take place, though doubtless with much hand-wringing and foot dragging.
Just a thought.
VicB3
That might be overkill; I don’t think you’d find support for removing ADA regulations from essential businesses like grocery stores. People have to eat.
But this case is also clearly overkill. The cost of providing a personal interpreter to one person would clearly exceed the revenue from that person. The ruling stated the quoted price for an interpreter was $50-$65 per hour. The movie in question has a runtime of 149 minutes according to IMDB, so that’s $125-$195 depending on what end of the range is charged and whether they let you charge a partial hour. From what I could tell, the cost of an adult ticket at the cinema in question varies from around $6.50 (for a morning showing) to $10.75 (for a weekend evening – movies can be more if they’re 3-D, but I’ll assume “Gone Girl” wasn’t 3-D). So the cost of the interpreter would be anywhere from 11.6 to 30 times the cost of the ticket.
And there’s no way to scale it. It’s not something like adding captioning or building a ramp, where you can do it once and accommodate lots of people in the future. Hiring the interpreters would allow one person to enjoy the movie once, and they would have to be re-hired each time he or another blind-deaf person wanted to see that or another movie.
In some cases, it’s reasonable for a place to provide an accommodation. But in some cases it’s more reasonable to expect the disabled person to provide his own accommodations. Supermarkets might be required to have aisles wide enough for a wheelchair, but they aren’t required to provide the wheelchair. Shopping malls might be required to accommodate a seeing-eye dog, but they aren’t required to provide the dog. In this case, the theater should only have to allow the guy to bring his interpreter in. They shouldn’t have to provide interpreters. If the ADA says otherwise, it should be changed.
If society thinks that the deaf-mute have a right to interpreters, society should provide them, instead of foisting the cost onto whatever businesses they decide to patronize.
From the ruling:
By rejecting this, the appeals court apparently is saying that art galleries are required to provide someone to describe the art to blind people, and that concert halls are required to provide someone to describe the music to deaf people. Seriously.
“That might be overkill; I don’t think you’d find support for removing ADA regulations from essential businesses like grocery stores. People have to eat. ”
Fine, but where does it stop? Who defines or how what is “Essential,” or how big they have to be before the law applies to them? Is a gas station essential? How about a chain of gas stations? Or restaurants? The dry-cleaner? It goes on and on.*
To repeat: “The ADA, while in its nascent stages well meaning, has morphed into a way for fortune seeking bullies, disabled or otherwise, to extort treasure and energy from businesses of all types and sizes.” To leave the door open for even for what might seem, at the time, commonsense or compassionate exceptions clears a path for continued ADA harassments and shakedowns via an inevitable, ever evolving and expanding tort-driven definition of what is “Essential.”
It’s best to simplify. Make the ADA applicable only to public owned spaces and buildings. (The Handicapped are citizens and so presumably such spaces belong to them as well.) Anything more allows *the* essential problems of overreach and greed to continue to fester.
Just a thought.
VicB3
*Doubtless some larger businesses – Supermarket chains and such – may in the spirit of the common good and corporate image continue to accommodate the Handicapped as they see fit. Ditto the public spirited little guy. But for *all* businesses the terror and uncertainty of an ADA Drive-By will cease.
There is an easy solution to this case: the blind/deaf person can rent the movie and have their friend/spouse/parent who knows sign language do the interpreting. The idea that all disabilities can be accomodated is insane. Can a legless man become a roofer? I sure hope not. The law demands that braille instructions be placed on drive up ATM machines, but what is a blind person doing driving up to one? How do you make skiing accessible to the blind? Suits are beginning that want the whole internet made accessible to the disabled, but what does that even mean? There are millions upon millions of amateur sites/blogs that have video and audio–how can they be accessible?
His spouse has been dead for over ten years; the ruling states that he did used to have her do the interpreting when she was alive. I don’t know his age, but his parents might be dead by now, or otherwise unavailable. (The “friend” suggestion would be my suggestion as well; presumably they all know how to communicate with him. And if he can’t find a friend willing to go with him, he should have to cover his own interpreter costs.)
Also, you generally can’t rent a movie that’s currently playing, because the movie industry likes their release windows. (Although the movie in question had been playing long enough that his usual theater had stopped playing it, so he probably wouldn’t have had to wait too much longer for it to be released.) And the court would tell you that one of the ADA’s purposes was to get disabled people out into society, so your “rental” suggestion wouldn’t go over well.
Well, in this case his disability CAN be accommodated – it’s just a matter of whether it SHOULD be. The theater can afford the cost it would take to accommodate him once, even if they’d lose money on the showing. But if he went to the theater every day, it would cost them maybe around $50,000 – $72,000. I don’t see why the theater should have to pay for this, no matter how many times he (or another blind-deaf person) wants to come.
Well, in this case his disability CAN be accommodated.
I disagree. It can’t feasibly be accommodated, because the cost to the theater of the accommodation is several orders of magnitude higher than the admission fee. A single accommodation could result in the theater losing money on any entire packed showing. Theaters that lose money go out of business.
Accommodations that would bankrupt a business are not possible.
I am sorry. The guy is blind and deaf. How exactly is his experienced enhanced by watching the movie in a theater? If this would improve his quality of life, I might have some empathy. but how does he even know for sure he is in a theater?
I might change my mind if someone would explain that to me.
According to the ruling, “He enjoys attending movies in person for a number of reasons; among others, it affords him the opportunity to participate in discussions about the movies with his friends and family.”
I am not entirely sure what the other reasons are, but if he simply wanted to discuss the movie, I assume giving him an electronic copy of the script would be much cheaper than paying someone to more or less do the same thing live. (Presumably he has accessibility software of some kind, as he apparently uses email.)
Well, there’s this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smell-O-Vision
@Allan… No, never mind. I would agree that “possibly” letting him bring in an interpreter free of charge as “possibly” reasonable. Providing him one, no.
As for what they should sign, providing that DVS is included on the movie, that would be a good track to sign. After all, that’s provided by the producer of the film and describes what is occurring on the screen that they think is important.
Now, as to providing the equipment for hearing the DVS track, since they limit that to their equipment then it would be unreasonable for the interpreter to provide since it’s not available commercially for end-users. That may not be correct, I do not fully stand by it. I prefer to consume my movies at home, unless I was with my kids, in which case DVS or no DVS really didn’t matter, except for 300… :DWho really cares what the pokemon’s movie has to say on the DVS track? 😀
Should all tv shows/movies have described video? I personally think it’s a minor expense, could be handled much as “talking books” are and have been thru the library of congress or with tax credits to the producer, except that movies don’t ever net any profit since that would involve paying royalties… Many may disagree, but if you can track it down (maybe in your local library), try “hunt for red october” or “true grit” with DVS turned on and just listen to the soundtrack. You might find it a “cool” experience. 😀 And yes, I have purchased both, and a few others because. There is after all a special feeling that comes with ownership that simply borrowing from a library doesn’t give.
Glad I chose not to start out this post angry although I feel Allan’s comment to be a bit out of bounds. Deaf blind doesn’t imply vegetative state or completely lacking in cognative facaulties. Even though my porr spelling might give that impression. And no, i’m not deaf/blind only blind.