Congress enacted the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, a few years before society began to move from Main Street to the Internet. Faced with ever-changing (and inaccessible) technologies, the disability rights community has worked tirelessly to bring the ADA and other disability rights laws into the digital age. DREDF’s own precedent-setting consent decree in NAD, et al. v. Netflix was a crucial step in this effort to ensure people with disabilities have full access to the Internet.
Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a disappointing decision that could impact the future of Internet accessibility in California. In GLAD, et al. v. CNN, the court dismissed part of a lawsuit brought by Deaf and hard of hearing advocates who claimed CNN violated California’s Unruh Act and Disabled Persons Act (“DPA”) by failing to caption the over 100 videos it uploads on its site each day. The court applied California’s Anti-SLAPP statute, a law that allows for the early dismissal of meritless claims based on an act in furtherance of one’s right to free speech. After the court found CNN’s online videos constituted conduct in furtherance of its protected right to free speech, the burden shifted to the plaintiffs to show a probability that they would prevail on their Unruh Act and DPA claims. An Unruh Act violation requires a showing of intentional discrimination, and the court held the plaintiffs could not meet this burden because CNN’s policy of displaying online video programming without closed captioning applied equally to all.
The news however is not all bad. The Ninth Circuit declined to resolve the DPA claim and certified to the California Supreme Court the question of whether CNN’s website constituted a place of public accommodation under the DPA. Application of the DPA to websites would be a huge victory for the disability rights community and greatly improve Internet accessibility for people with disabilities all across California. Stay tuned!