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Quick Hits – Hearts and Flowers Edition

By Richard Hunt

February 14, 2021

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Valentines Day, which has been in the stores since December 26, has finally arrived in reality. Since I last blogged a few weeks ago the courts have continued to decide cases and the blogosphere has continued to cover, or mis-cover, accessibility related news. Here’s a sweet collection of matters to read after you’ve finished your celebration of the day. WCAG 3.0 – Will it really matter at all? The preliminary draft of WCAG 3.0 has…

Accessibility Defense

Quick Hits – assembly line edition.

By Richard Hunt

January 26, 2021

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With more than 40 new decisions in the last two weeks it hasn’t been easy getting this blog out. I’m not the only lawyer with too much to do too fast, as the following cases demonstrate. The problem with industrial litigation In a classic episode of “I Love Lucy” she and her friend Ethel get a job in a chocolate factory but find they can’t keep up with the assembly line and have to resort…

Accessibility Defense

Happy New Years – 2020 ADA and FHA retrospective

By Richard Hunt

December 31, 2020

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Here’s a toast to the end of a bad year. I don’t know anyone who won’t be happy to see 2020 behind us, but it’s worth looking back at how the law of accessibility developed in the last year. Fair Housing Act developments were bracketed by two events, one of which was scarcely noticed but could be important. In February, to considerable fanfare, HUD rolled out its new Guidance on requests for accommodation concerning animals.¹…

Accessibility Defense

Reality, virtual and legal – does the ADA require captioning of VR games?

By Richard Hunt

December 6, 2020

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Jeremy Horelick of ADA Site Compliance called my attention to a recently filed lawsuit making a novel ADA claim. In Panarra v. HTC Corporation and HTC America, Inc., Case No. 6:20-cv-06991 (W.D.N.Y.) the plaintiff claims that because he is deaf he is denied equal access to the virtual reality games and experiences offered by defendants’ website, https://www.viveport.com/infinity. This, he claims, violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and New York law.² The lawsuit can be seen as just…

Accessibility Defense

DOT issues new in-flight animal restrictions, and a breath of reason in regulation.

By Richard Hunt

December 4, 2020

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The Department of Transportation has issued it final rule concerning in-flight rules for animals helping those with disabilities.¹ The bottom line is straightforward. Airlines are only required to permit dogs trained to perform a specific disability related tasks in the cabin of their aircraft. This adopts the same restriction that the Department of Justice has long had in place for Title III public accommodations under the ADA (except that DOT, unlike DOJ, does not recognize…

Accessibility Defense

Quick Hits – What the courts are doing edition . . .

By Richard Hunt

November 15, 2020

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Although you wouldn’t know it from watching the news many of the 677 federal judges in the U.S. are working on cases that don’t deal with how to count votes. Here’s a look at what they’ve been up to. Eleventh Amendment abrogation for ADA claims In Natl. Assn. of the Deaf v. Fla., 2020 WL 6575040 (11th Cir. Nov. 10, 2020) the Eleventh Circuit held that Congress validly abrogated 11th Amendment immunity with respect to the…

Accessibility Defense

OK, the new HUD regulations on disparate impact are a real tempest.

By Richard Hunt

October 27, 2020

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On October 9, which seems like an eternity ago based on the number of emails and texts I’ve gotten asking for contributions to various political parties and politicians, I reported on HUD’s new regulations on disparate impact claims published on September 24. It was a counterpoint to the decision in Connecticut Fair Housing Center v. CoreLogic Rental Property Solutions, LLC, 2020 WL 4570110 (D.Conn. August 7, 2020) holding that third party service providers could violate the…

Accessibility Defense

HUD gets it wrong again on emotional support animals – two is one too many.

By Richard Hunt

October 20, 2020

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On October 7, 2020 HUD filed a charge of discrimination against Fairfield Properties and Pinewood Estates at Commack Condominium because they denied an accommodation for two emotional support dogs. FHEO No. 02-17-5246-8. The Charge includes the facts, which don’t seem to be disputed. It does not include an explanation of how HUD thinks these facts constitute discrimination, but HUD’s thinking on the subject can be inferred from the Charge and shows why landlords and condominium…

Accessibility Defense

Disability, criminality, and disparate impact under the FHA – brewing a tempest in a teapot.

By Richard Hunt

October 9, 2020

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The recent decision from Judge Vanessa Bryant in Connecticut Fair Housing Center v. CoreLogic Rental Property Solutions, LLC, 2020 WL 4570110 (D.Conn. August 7, 2020) was followed only weeks later by HUD’s final regulation on disparate impact claims, 85 FR at 60288, September 24, 2020.¹ The CoreLogic decision’s most important holding was that a third party tenant screening service could be liable for providing information that had a disparate impact on a protected class, but Judge Bryant’s…

Accessibility Defense

The Online Accessibility Act of 2020 – does it do what it needs to do?

By Richard Hunt

October 4, 2020

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On October 2, while the news covered President Trump’s admission to Walter Reed for treatment of Covid-19, Congressmen Lou Correa (D-CA) and Ted Budd (R-NC) introduced the bipartisan Online Accessibility Act, which they claim will “increase website accessibility and reduce predatory lawsuits filed against businesses.”¹ Will it work? That’s a reasonable question. Let’s start by looking at the problems with the law of website accessibility as it exists today. From a business standpoint the situation is somewhere between…

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Quick Hits – Hearts and Flowers Edition

Quick Hits – assembly line edition.

Happy New Years – 2020 ADA and FHA retrospective

Reality, virtual and legal – does the ADA require captioning of VR games?

DOT issues new in-flight animal restrictions, and a breath of reason in regulation.

Quick Hits – What the courts are doing edition . . .

OK, the new HUD regulations on disparate impact are a real tempest.

HUD gets it wrong again on emotional support animals – two is one too many.

Disability, criminality, and disparate impact under the FHA – brewing a tempest in a teapot.

The Online Accessibility Act of 2020 – does it do what it needs to do?

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