Eastern District of California Blog

Battle Over ADA Claims Involving Fresno Restaurant in EDCA Court

The August 8 Fresno Bee has an interesting article over an American with Disabilities Act (ADA) battle involving Zlfred's restaurant in Fresno.  While the initial action in Fresno County has been dismissed, the parties are still litigating the restaurant's racketeering countersuit in Fresno federal court. 

EDCA class action suit over Shasta County's jail treatment of disabled inmates

Everett Joseph Jewett has been engaged in a fruitless legal attack on the Shasta County jail for a long time. His first federal complaint – printed by hand on a court form – was filed Dec. 18, 2006, in Sacramento.

Acting as his own lawyer, he has struggled with an arcane judicial system in a campaign against the county’s resistance to accommodations for inmates with disabilities.

 

Like most prisoners who represent themselves, Jewett hit a brick wall made up of his marginal understanding of statutory and case law, the rules of civil procedure and the daunting task of communicating with the court through layers of penal authorities.

Now, the 45-year-old Jewett, who has spent his share of time in the jail, has achieved what could be a significant breakthrough. His 10th federal court complaint was filed May 25 in Sacramento. This time, though, he comes not just with lawyers, but with an impressive team of them.

The new complaint – filed in Jewett’s ongoing second lawsuit – alleges that inmates with disabilities are segregated on 23-hour lockdown, excluded from jail programs and services, and subjected to physical access barriers throughout. The result, it alleges, is a facility that imposes some of the worst conditions on people with mobility disabilities while at the same time excluding them from the most beneficial programs within the jail.

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Named as defendants are Shasta County and its Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff Tom Bosenko, and the California Forensic Medical Group, a private corporation that provides health care services to inmates under a contract with the county.

The complaint seeks a permanent injunction barring the defendants from violating the ADA, the federal Rehabilitation Act and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act.

In a prepared statement posted on its website late Thursday, the Sheriff’s Office said the county “has engaged in constructive discussions about disability access with representatives of the disability rights groups who are among the plaintiffs in the lawsuit prior to the filing of the recent complaint. The county will continue to engage in such discussions.

“To the extent the new complaint alleges any retaliatory conduct toward an individual inmate, such as the allegations of denial of medication, or the presentation of tainted or inedible food … the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office completely denies those allegations.”

In 2014 Jewett’s lonely crusade came to the attention of Jon Atabek, who runs a small law firm in Irvine. He funneled the information to nonprofit Disability Rights Legal Center in Los Angeles. One of the nonprofit’s staff attorneys, Kara Janssen, traveled to Redding and inspected the jail.

“I was really shocked,” she said in a telephone interview. “It’s one of the worst situations I’ve ever seen. There is not one cell nor bathroom that is ADA compliant. Inmates are placed in solitary confinement if they won’t give up their canes and walkers.

“The county has known of these issues for a long time,” said Janssen, who was involved in settlements last year of disability-related legal actions targeting jails in Los Angeles and Alameda counties. “There are clear solutions that can be implemented, but they have simply been ignored in Shasta County.”

Sac Bee, 5/31/16; see also Sac Bee, 5/25/16

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article81010747.html#storylink=cpy

 

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article81010747.html#storylink=cpy

 

EDCA Court Denies Dismissal Of ADA Suit Over Delta King

    For 85 years, the riverboat Delta King has carried passengers between Sacramento and San Francisco, served as a wartime vessel of the government and - in later years after being restored to its former glory - entertained people as a hotel, bar and grill and live music venue.

     But the Delta King is not, as an 85-year-old riverboat, particularly accessible to people with disabilities. Its gangways are sloped. The decks are slanted. Entrances have raised thresholds that kept water out of staterooms in the riverboat's seafaring days.

     So it's no surprise that Hollynn D'Lil, a paraplegic, sued the riverboat's owners and its champions - the City of Sacramento and Old Sacramento Business Association - in August 2011 after she tried to reserve an accessible hotel room and found that the land-tethered boat completely failed to meet its obligations under California's Disabled Rights Act and the federal Americans With Disabilities Act.

     It isn't that the Delta King's owners or the city haven't tried to make the riverboat ADA-compliant. Solon Wisham Jr., the assistant city manager for Sacramento from 1981 to 1991, said in a declaration answering D'Lil's lawsuit that "the goal was to find a way to preserve as much of the original appearance and design of the vessel as possible in a way consistent with then-existing standards as a hotel and public accommodation."

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     Disabled patrons can be seated on the more accessible third deck and order food and drinks there, but "it does not provide the equivalent ambience, experience and scenic view as seating on the fourth floor of the Delta Bar and Grill," according to U.S. District Judge William Shubb in denying a dismissal request by the riverboat's owners.

     In his 36-page ruling, Shubb acknowledged the boat's historic status but said he could not see what had been done to win an accessibility exemption under the historic building code.

     "None of the evidence before the court suggests that the Sacramento Building Department worked with or solicited input from a representative local group of disabled people," Shubb wrote. "The lack of evidence showing compliance with the historic building code's handicap hardship exceptions raises a genuine dispute as to whether those sections were in fact utilized to grant any exceptions."

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     The Delta King and its twin Delta Queen were built in Glasgow, Scotland and Stockton, Calif. and were christened in 1927, according to the Delta King website. The 285-foot paddlewheel boats took over 10 hours to reach San Francisco from Sacramento while guests enjoyed Prohibition-era drinking, gambling, jazz bands and fine dining - until the completion of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937 and the Bay Bridge in 1938 ended the riverboats' run.

Courthouse News, 10/1/14

EEOC Files ADA Action Against Health Care Provider

Nationwide health care provider Dialysis Clinic Inc. is guilty of disability discrimination for firing and refusing to rehire a nurse because her treatment for breast cancer was taking too long, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has alleged in a lawsuit filed in Sacramento federal court.

Sacramento Bee, 7/11/14

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/07/11/6550850/dialysis-clinic-faces-discrimination.html#storylink=cpy

Fresno Atty Sues Rowell Building Owners Over Disabled Access

Fresno attorney David Mugridge has had it with the historic Rowell Building, his professional home since 1995.

Mugridge, 64, partially disabled from multiple back surgeries over the past eight years, has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Fresno, alleging more than a dozen violations of the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, as well as state law related to handicapped access.

Fresno Bee, 1/7/14

 

Walmart Pays $40,000 To Estate Of Disabled Employee Who Died Of Heart Attack

The estate of a former employee at a Placerville Wal-Mart store, now dead from a heart attack, has received $40,000 in settlement of a lawsuit over the store manager's refusal to accommodate the employee's weak heart.

David Gallo suffered from atrial fibrillation, an ailment that causes an irregular heartbeat, shortness of breath, and loss of leg strength, stated the suit, filed in Sacramento federal court on Gallo's behalf by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The store manager stripped Gallo of his legal right to park near the store and fired him when he complained, the suit alleged. The manager's actions violated Gallo's rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act, it further alleged.

Sacramento Bee, 7/29/13; [updated story Sacramento Bee, 7/30/13].

Blind Man Receives Settlement On ADA Claim

A national education provider has paid $100,000 to extract itself from a lawsuit over its refusal to hire a blind man for a position at its Rancho Cordova campus.

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On Kirksey's behalf, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate an out-of-court settlement. The agency then sued the parent company, ITT Educational Services Inc., in Sacramento federal court, accusing the company of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by not granting Kirksey's reasonable request for an accommodation and denying him a job because he is blind.

In addition to the money paid to Kirksey, a consent decree filed in court Thursday calls for the company and its more than 140 sites of ITT Technical Institutes to revise their hiring assessments and website testing.

Sacramento Bee, 4/28/13

Feds Sue Placer County Disability Group Over Deaf Worker's Treatment

A nonprofit Placer County organization dedicated to providing independent living services to people with developmental disabilities violated the law when it failed to provide reasonable accommodations to one of its own employees who is deaf, regulators charged Monday in Sacramento federal court. 

A lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accuses Placer ARC of refusing to provide a certified American Sign Language interpreter for a deaf instructional aide.

Sacramento Bee, 3/26/13

Yuba City Pays Louie Not To File ADA Lawsuits

George Louie is a West Sacramento man who has sued hundreds of Northern California cities and businesses for failing to comply with the federal Americans with Disability Act.

This week, Yuba City announced it has agreed to pay Louie $15,000 to leave the city and its businesses alone for good.

Sacramento Bee, 10/13/12

Disabled Activist Sues Yuba City Over Lack Of Access At Intersections

As Yuba City prepares a new plan to identify and eliminate access barriers  for disabled residents, it has been slammed by a new lawsuit alleging a lack of  access.

George Louie, a West Sacramento man who has filed lawsuits against scores of  local businesses, says in one of his newest cases, filed last week in U.S.  District Court in Sacramento, that Yuba City has violated the Americans with  Disabilities Act. The suit claims the city denied mobility-disabled individuals  access to public rights of way, curb ramps and sidewalks at 44 intersections and  inaccessible picnic tables at Hillcrest Park.

Appeal-Democrat, 6/23/12