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Thread: A new type of ADA law suit
Number of posts in this thread: 6 (In chronological order)
From: Steve Green
Date: Mon, May 20 2019 5:24AM
Subject: A new type of ADA law suit
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If you operate a hotel or guest rooms in the US, or if you provide website development services to such organisations, you need to read this.
Last year, an ADA law suit was brought against one of our clients that operates a hotel in New York. The suit claimed that the website was not accessible, and after making the necessary improvements we thought the problem had gone away.
However, they have just received another ADA law suit, but this one is different. It is claiming that the website does not contain the necessary information about accessible rooms and features. As far as I can tell, this information is mandatory and it is not present on our client's website. What surprises me is that in all the discussions about ADA cases, I have never seen this requirement mentioned. I am also surprised that our client's US lawyers didn't tell them about it.
Fixing this isn't just a matter of adding some text content. Some of the requirements mean that the booking process will need to be redesigned. And these requirements also apply to rooms sold through third parties.
Whilst I hope this is a one-off claim, there is the possibility we will now see another tsunami of them like we did last year.
The relevant section in ADA is 28 cfr section 36.302(e)(1), which says:
Reservations made by places of lodging.
A public accommodation that owns, leases (or leases to), or operates a place of lodging shall, with respect to reservations made by any means, including by telephone, in-person, or through a third party -
(i) Modify its policies, practices, or procedures to ensure that individuals with disabilities can make reservations for accessible guest rooms during the same hours and in the same manner as individuals who do not need accessible rooms;
(ii) Identify and describe accessible features in the hotels and guest rooms offered through its reservations service in enough detail to reasonably permit individuals with disabilities to assess independently whether a given hotel or guest room meets his or her accessibility needs;
(iii) Ensure that accessible guest rooms are held for use by individuals with disabilities until all other guest rooms of that type have been rented and the accessible room requested is the only remaining room of that type;
(iv) Reserve, upon request, accessible guest rooms or specific types of guest rooms and ensure that the guest rooms requested are blocked and removed from all reservations systems; and
(v) Guarantee that the specific accessible guest room reserved through its reservations service is held for the reserving customer, regardless of whether a specific room is held in response to reservations made by others.
Regards,
Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd
020 3002 4176 (direct)
0800 612 2780 (switchboard)
07957 246 276 (mobile)
020 7692 5517 (fax)
Skype: testpartners
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www.testpartners.co.uk
Connect to me on LinkedIn - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/stevegreen2
From: Guy Hickling
Date: Mon, May 20 2019 12:03PM
Subject: Re: A new type of ADA law suit
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Steve,
Is this the same client you wrote about in WebAIM last summer - a UK based
company? If so this has considerable implications for UK and European
companies trading in the US.
Regards,
Guy Hickling
Accessibility Consultant
From: Steve Green
Date: Mon, May 20 2019 12:36PM
Subject: Re: A new type of ADA law suit
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This is the same client. This particular ADA requirement only applies to hotels, guest houses and similar businesses, so its impact is relatively limited. There probably aren't all that many UK-owned hotels in the US.
However, it is likely that there are other sector-specific ADA requirements for other sectors. I have trawled through more ADA legislation than any non-lawyer should have to, yet I still can't tell if there are more requirements that I have not yet found. It would be nice if it is all summarised somewhere - maybe it is and I've not found it.
Steve
From: Guy Hickling
Date: Mon, May 20 2019 2:57PM
Subject: Re: A new type of ADA law suit
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I audited a British chain of hotels a couple of years ago that had at least
one hotel and 3 restaurants in Chicago and New York and elsewhere (and I
notice they never fixed the websites on either side of the pond so they're
playing with fire! It beats me why some people ask for an audit sometimes
if they aren't going to fix them - just to pretend they are doing something
about it I suppose, and to show something on paper if anyone asks. They can
get away with that over here, but they're in for a rude shock on their
premises over there sooner or later when they receive a nice fat legal
claim!)
Anyway, stadiums, concert halls, theatres and cinemas have similar ADA
rules to follow for the booking processes as hotels. Seats for wheel chair
users and similar disabled facilities all have to be bookable in just the
same way ordinary seats can be booked, which also means on the websites
again. And cinemas must provide caption hardware for individual seats so I
assume they must also be bookable as freely as other seats. I don't suppose
UK companies own many sports stadia over there. Chains of cinemas might,
perhaps, though I would have thought they would more likely be the other
way round, US chains owning cinemas here.
Still, the main problem UK companies with a US presence have is to get
their websites WCAG compliant. Most of them are being much too slow about
even getting that far!
Regards,
Guy
From: Jiatyan Chen
Date: Mon, May 20 2019 3:45PM
Subject: Re: A new type of ADA law suit
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> On 20 May 2019, at 04:24, Steve Green < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> It is claiming that the website does not contain the necessary information about accessible rooms and features. As far as I can tell, this information is mandatory and it is not present on our client's website. What surprises me is that in all the discussions about ADA cases, I have never seen this requirement mentioned. I am also surprised that our client's US lawyers didn't tell them about it.
[...]
> The relevant section in ADA is 28 cfr section 36.302(e)(1), which says:
>
> Reservations made by places of lodging.
> A public accommodation that owns, leases (or leases to), or operates a place of lodging shall, with respect to reservations made by any means, including by telephone, in-person, or through a third party -
Thanks for pasting the ADA language. The way I read it, if the company includes a 24/7 phone line for reservation, and are able to convey all the accessibility information over the phone, they are complying by ADA requirements.
--
Jiatyan Chen
From: Steve Green
Date: Mon, May 20 2019 4:22PM
Subject: Re: A new type of ADA law suit
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Unfortunately not. Clause 12 (i) says "...ensure that individuals with disabilities can make reservations for accessible guest rooms during the same hours and in the same manner as individuals who do not need accessible rooms", the key phrase being "in the same manner".
Steve