Legislative/Regulatory Actions

Seyfarth Synopsis: New Affordable Care Act and Medicaid Regulations will require covered entities providing health care programs and services have accessible electronic information technology, including accessible websites.

While we continue to wait for new regulations for the websites of state and local governments, federal agencies and public accommodations, two new regulations from the Department of Health and Human Services
Continue Reading New Healthcare Regulations Impose Accessible Technology Requirements

Seyfarth Synopsis: In yet another effort to limit predatory ADA lawsuits, California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed into law – effective immediately – legislation that will provide small business owners with some potential relief.

Another year, another attempt in California to reform disability access laws – which presently offer plaintiffs a $4,000 per violation bounty for suing businesses.  But this
Continue Reading Latest California ADA Lawsuit Reform Attempt: “Watered Down Solution”

This morning, on Global Accessibility Awareness Day, DOJ participated by issuing its Spring 2016 unified agenda, including upcoming regulatory actions on web accessibility and movie captioning.

Click on the links to the right in the bullets below for the lowdown on each rule, but here are a few highlights:

AA65: State and Local Government web accessibility regulations.  No need
Continue Reading On Global Accessibility Awareness Day, DOJ Releases Agenda Indicating Progress in 2016; Omits Title III

Seyfarth Synopsis: NYC recently passed a law requiring that its government agency websites meet accessibility standards.  Other state and local governments may follow NYC’s lead and enact accessibility standards for government agencies, contractors and even public accommodations in the absence of regulations from DOJ.

On March 14, New York City became the first major municipality in the United States to
Continue Reading New York City Enacts Accessibility Standards for Government Websites

As we reported in July of 2014, the DOJ is working on final regulations that would require movie theatres with digital screens to show movies with closed captioning and audio description.

At a cost to the industry that DOJ estimated will be between $138.1 and $275.7 million, the proposed regulations would require that all movie theatres with digital screens
Continue Reading Regulatory Update: Movie Captioning and Audio Description Regulations in the Final Stages of Review

There is more bad news for businesses that thought that they could wait for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to issue specific regulations before making their websites accessible to individuals with disabilities.  Federal Magistrate Judge Robertson in the District of Massachusetts recently denied motions by Harvard and MIT to dismiss or stay website accessibility class action lawsuits, and recommended that
Continue Reading Lack Of Website Accessibility Regulations Is No Bar To Suit, Another Judge Affirms

Marcapitolianne Wilson of Chain Store Age Media reported today that the “ADA Education and Reform Act of 2015”, H.R. 3765, introduced yesterday, October 20, 2015, by Representatives Ted Poe (R-TX), Doug Collins (R-GA) and David Jolly (R-FL), seeks to address ADA “drive-by” lawsuits. This is a topic about which we’ve reported about numerous times, such as here.
Continue Reading ADA Reform Legislation Proponents Cite Seyfarth’s Lawsuit Data

Review of Disabled Persons Act Applicability to Websites Withdrawn; California Agency Issues Guidance on CASp Benefits; and Novel New Serial Lawsuits Filed Against Car Dealerships

By Kristina Launey

As we’ve discussed previously, California is a hotbed for disability access suits – both based upon alleged physical accessibility violations of California law and the ADA and based upon alleged inaccessible websites. 
Continue Reading California Accessibility Update

By Kevin Fritz

Members of the European Parliament voted last week to strengthen a proposed European Directive on Accessibility of Public Sector Bodies’ Websites.  The beefed up version of the directive would require all UK public sector websites to be accessible to users with disabilities; not just those sites proposed by the European Commission, such as social security benefits and
Continue Reading New EU Web Accessibility Rules In the Works

By Minh Vu and Paul Kehoe

Since we reported that the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) issued its proposed regulations last month concerning the definition of a “disability” under Titles II (applicable to state and local governments) and III (applicable to public accommodations) of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), we have received a number of inquiries about the regulations’ impact and whether clients need to take any action.  We share here our initial thoughts.

Background and Key Provisions.  The proposed regulations implement the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA) which amended the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).  Congress passed the ADAAA in response to several court decisions, including from the Supreme Court, that narrowly interpreted the definition of “disability.”   The point of the ADAAA, according to the DOJ, was to “mak[e] it easier for an individual seeking protection under the ADA to establish that he or she has a disability within the meaning of the statute.”

In March 2011, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) issued its final regulations to implement the ADAAA’s requirements for Title I of the ADA, which prohibits disability discrimination by employers.  These DOJ proposed regulations will implement ADAAA requirements for Titles II and III of the ADA, which prohibit discrimination in state and local programs and by public accommodations, respectively.  DOJ’s proposed regulations closely track the statutory requirements of the ADAAA and the EEOC’s final regulations.

The ADAAA did not change the ADA’s definition of disability, which continues to be:
Continue Reading More People Will Be Individuals With a "Disability" Under Proposed Justice Department Regulations