Negotiating Equal Access Seems a Never-Ending Job

An Indianapolis father angry that his deaf-blind son and daughter were denied access to a birthday party at a roller skating rink protested to the Justice Department that their legal rights were being violated and their self-image harmed.

Citing the 9-year-old Americans With Disabilities Act, department lawyers said people in charge of the rink were acting unreasonably, especially since the father had offered to assist his children. The owner, United Skates of America, soon capitulated to a department demand that it provide “complete access” to all people with disabilities at its 13 rinks--unless on an individual basis the safety of others is shown to be threatened.

Quietly and methodically, lawyers in the Justice Department’s civil rights division are using mediation skills backed by the steel fist of federal law to improve the quality of life for thousands of disabled Americans. And, although their actions seldom make headlines, each victory for a person with a disability means similar victories for countless others, they say.

Mediation Goes Well

The process also has proved beneficial for employers and business leaders; as they have overcome their concerns about dealing with disabled people, their businesses have gained customers.

“Our mediation efforts with businesses have been extremely successful,” says Bill Lann Lee, the former Los Angeles lawyer who is acting assistant attorney general for civil rights. “More than 90% of our cases have been settled short of court decisions.

“Businesses recognize we want to operate in a reasonable way, and they often come up with innovative solutions that serve as models for a whole industry.”

Charles Broun, a senior attorney for Bass Hotels & Resorts, which negotiated a national agreement with the Justice Department last year for more accessible guest rooms, agrees that government lawyers “were at all times fair and reasonable.” Bass is the parent company for Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza Hotels.

Broun said federal lawyers recognized some difficult architectural problems would have to be solved in older hotels but did not insist on major reconstruction. “At no point did we feel uncomfortable.”

Among other provisions, the agreement with Bass mandates that each hotel must guarantee reservations for wheelchair-accessible rooms and generally must keep at least two such rooms available for late-arriving travelers. Any future complaints are to be submitted to an arbitrator.

Congress enacted the landmark ADA in 1990 to protect the civil rights of an estimated 49 million disabled Americans in public accommodations and hiring practices. Although Title III of the act mandates that businesses make their sites accessible to people who have disabilities, many companies still do not. But compliance is improving, officials note.

The enforcement process often begins at the local level, Lee says, where the Justice Department’s 93 U.S. attorneys’ offices process many complaints.

Typical of many settlements reached by government attorneys was one involving a Myrtle Beach, S.C., motel that turned away two vacationing youths who used wheelchairs because they have cerebral palsy.

The agreement, on file in federal court in Columbia, S.C., says the Ocean Plaza Motel violated the ADA by refusing to admit the youths and their mothers because of the children’s disabilities.

The settlement required motel owners to pay the families $92,000 in damages, train their employees in ADA regulations and post a formal notice that the inn no longer will deny services or accommodations to people with physical disabilities.

Similarly, the department has negotiated a number of agreements with restaurant chains. That process began with a 1994 complaint by a Bowie, Md., woman, Patricia Day, who said she was unable to satisfy her hankering for a Whopper at a nearby Burger King. Day said the restaurant’s service line was too narrow for her wheelchair and she got stuck between its metal barriers.

With additional prodding from the Disability Rights Council, a Washington-based nonprofit group, Burger King Corp. agreed to hire a consultant to survey its 502 company-owned outlets and remove any barriers that could impede the disabled.

“I wanted to wait in line like everyone else,” Day said, explaining why she filed a complaint. Expressing satisfaction with the outcome, she said that in her experience people with disabilities use fast-food restaurants more than traditional ones.

Subsequently, Friendly’s restaurant chain agreed to widen its doorways, lower its counters and pay a $50,000 penalty to settle a case brought by the Justice Department.

Wendy’s International Inc. followed suit, agreeing last year to make 1,700 of its restaurants more accessible. The settlement stemmed from a joint investigation by the federal government and the attorneys general of nine states, including California.

“I’m glad to do it. We want everyone to be a customer,” said Wendy’s founder, Dave Thomas.

Some cases take months or even years to negotiate, officials say.

“Once a complaint is filed, we must conduct our own investigation,” said Liz Savage, a department attorney. “We can’t rely on the facts as alleged by the complainant.

“Besides, Congress made clear they wanted the government to try to mediate disputes arising from ADA. The law, however, is still relatively new to the business community. A lot of education goes into the process, and creative solutions can take time. Architectural changes, for example, must be reviewed at various levels of a company. A long mediation process is not necessarily indicative of resistance.”

‘Fundamental Rights’

In some other cases:

* The Eye Institute of Orange County, a private ophthalmological practice, agreed with the Justice Department to pay $5,000 to compensate a teenager allegedly denied an appointment because she has Down syndrome. It agreed to treat all patients with disabilities on a nondiscriminatory basis.

* The Oregon state lottery was made accessible to people with mobility impairments under a department-negotiated settlement. Oregon required more than 3,000 retail outlets taking part in the program to ensure equal physical access to all ticket purchasers.

* A pediatric dentist in North Carolina agreed to change his policy of limiting appointments for disabled children to “handicapped” days. The doctor agreed to schedule patients with disabilities to any available time and to train his staff accordingly.

* A Virginia resident complained that a hotel was misusing handicapped spaces for valet parking. The hotel agreed to stop the practice and instructed its staff to call police for enforcement if any spaces were misused.

“Solving real-world basic issues and guaranteeing fundamental rights is really what this law is all about,” Lee says.

For more information on the ADA, the Justice Department has a toll-free information line, 1-800-514-0301, and an Internet Web site, https://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/adahom1.htm