9th Circuit Rules Netflix Isn't Subject To Disability Law

An anonymous reader writes with news that the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has ruled that Netflix doesn't have to caption their videos. "A federal appeals court ruled (PDF) yesterday that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) doesn't apply to Netflix, since the online video provider is 'not connected to any actual, physical place.' Donald Cullen sued Netflix in March 2011, attempting to kick off a class-action lawsuit on behalf of disabled people who didn't have full use of the videos because they aren't all captioned. A district court judge threw out his lawsuit in 2013, and yesterday's ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upholds that decision. The decision is 'unpublished,' meaning it isn't intended to be used as precedent in other cases. However, it certainly doesn't bode well for any plaintiff thinking about filing a similar case in the 9th Circuit, which covers most of the Western US."

Comments

Why Netflix ?

[Alain Williams]

Surely the case should be against the film studios that made the films and not Netflix which is just distributing them ?

Re:Not to mention they aren't a monopoly

[MightyMartian]

Yet another way in which illegal file sharers provide a superior product.

Good

[Karmashock]

The ADA is horribly abused and has been a gold mine for slimy trial lawyers for years.

So many of their rules are stupid. Take ramps for example, the rules are TWELVE FEET of distance for every FOOT of rise. That's 1/12... By this logic, half the streets in san francisco are in violation of the ADA... that is the fucking hills have grades that are steeper than that. It is stupid.

The ADA should generally be repealed. Most businesses want customers disabled or otherwise to feel comfortable there and use their services. That alone should be enough to see that most things are accessible. Yes, seriously disabled people are going to need help. Let us not pretend that if we cover the world with ramps that such people can live on their own without assistance. Who bathes them etc? And here you might sight some fellow that winches himself into the tub with pullies. Any such fellow isn't going to need a 1/12 ramp to get into a shop.

Being disabled sucks. But being disabled is not a license to force everyone in the rest of society to cover the world in bubblewrap.

Re:Good

[AuMatar]

And living near San Francisco, there's streets my mother or grandmother wouldn't be able to climb. Even most locals won't walk in those areas. We can't control nature, but that's no excuse for not doing better than that when we can. Out of all the point of the ADA that could use fixing, you picked the one that makes perfect sense to complain about?

Re:Good

[Karmashock]

they're not naturally occurring hills, they're ROADS on hills. No one says the roads have to go up the hills perpendicular to the peak. You could zig zag the roads or spiral them up the hill. That would give you any grade you wanted.

As to you landing on your ass at 1/10... so for four feet of rise you expect me to build you 48 feet of ramp. I would sooner carry you into the store/restaurant myself and place you in your chair of choice.

If my offer to personally carry you into the establishment is not sufficient sacrifice and I have to spend tens of thousands of dollars... then I really just have zero sympathy at that point. It is too expensive.

Much like the idea of demolishing those old victorian style houses on those hills in SF and then coming up with some stupid road pattern that is ADA compliant, you're sometimes asking businesses to do too much.

Sometimes it isn't a big deal. Sometimes it really isn't practical to comply. I'm sorry. Any establishment is going to do its level best to make you feel comfortable and enjoy your experience. But there are limits. Some of these regulations are very expensive to comply with especially for legacy construction that wasn't built with these standards in mind.

There is a botanical garden in my area that was built about 100 years ago. Not ADA compliant. They run the whole operation with community donations. They're in jeopardy of being shut down unless they tear up all the landscaping and completely redesign the whole thing to be ADA complaint.

Grasp this... this hostility you're reading from me... it comes from some place real. And blowing me off because you think you're the only opinion with a greivance and all other positions should have a gun pressed against their heads and told to comply or die... is not acceptable.

And yes, that is what happens when you make something a federal mandate. You don't comply and they put pressure on you until you do comply. Such pressure will escalate eventually to guns pressed against heads.

Just because you send out a cute little court order saying "do this by this date or we'll fine you" does not mean that behind it all is not a threat of violence.

I am fine with ADA GUIDELINES. By all means, recommend stuff. And those that can practically comply will do so. New construction will make use of it. Whatever. But were not applicable... sorry. I didn't make you a cripple. I have disabled family members as well if that makes any difference to you and they agree with me.

Re:Good

[rahvin112]

o many of their rules are stupid. Take ramps for example, the rules are TWELVE FEET of distance for every FOOT of rise. That's 1/12... By this logic, half the streets in san francisco are in violation of the ADA... that is the fucking hills have grades that are steeper than that. It is stupid.

As others have said, you don't know what you are talking about. Put yourself in a wheelchair sometime and try it sometime.

The ADA should generally be repealed.

No it shouldn't. I wouldn't have a problem with repealing you though.

Most businesses want customers disabled or otherwise to feel comfortable there and use their services. That alone should be enough to see that most things are accessible.

History proves this absolutely false. Frankly you don't know what you are talking about. Generally the ADA only even applies in the case of NEW construction. Some of the accommodation rules do apply to existing businesses because the only other option would be to either tell the disabled person to go off a die or raise taxes and supply them a government helper to do all their shopping and errands for them. The ADA rules are far cheaper and reasonable.

Yes, seriously disabled people are going to need help. Let us not pretend that if we cover the world with ramps that such people can live on their own without assistance.

History again proves this as utter nonsense. With appropriate accommodation the disabled can live healthy productive lives without needing others help to survive. With the appropriate ADA accommodations in place a man in a wheelchair can live alone, feed, transport, work and shop all by himself and be a productive member of society. Without those accommodations he will be home bound, rely on government support including someone to go buy his groceries and take him places like the doctor. The cost of the ADA is far out weighed by the cost savings of allowing the disabled to support themselves. It's literally a 10:1 cost/benefit ratio.

Let us not pretend that if we cover the world with ramps that such people can live on their own without assistance. Who bathes them etc? And here you might sight some fellow that winches himself into the tub with pullies. Any such fellow isn't going to need a 1/12 ramp to get into a shop.

With proper accommodation a disabled person can function independently. In fact the vast majority of disabled do, the ones that don't often are mentally handicapped or so severely handicapped they can't. Again you have no concept about what slopes do and what impact they have in a wheelchair, (try one out and walk in their shoes before you start railing about their worthlessness). Though the most important part of ramps is NOT the slope rate but the very existence of a ramp. The legal rate simply sets the standard so the slope is not 1:2. Without the ramp the person in the wheelchair cannot enter the building, whether that is a grocery store or a doctors office. I'd also like to point out the ADA isn't just about wheelchairs, it's about the blind, the deaf and frankly anyone with a disability.

But being disabled is not a license to force everyone in the rest of society to cover the world in bubblewrap.

You are an asshole. You being an asshole is not a license to force everyone else to tolerate you.

The ADA doesn't "wrap the world in bubblewrap" as you claim, what it does is allow the disabled to take care of themselves with dignity. In the 50's someone in a wheelchair would need a co-worker to carry them into the bathroom and put them on toilet (that is if they even had a job because most couldn't even get into the building). Because of the ADA the bathroom door is now wide enough to fit the wheel chair through, there is a stall big enough to get the wheel chair in (while closing the door) and handles and railings to allo

Corollary

[WinstonWolfIT]

That would be like suing a book store for not having audiobooks and braille for all of their titles. Sometimes that little prick in a wheel chair causing trouble at the end of the day is just a little prick.

Re:Corollary

[Livius]

I sometimes hear that people with disabilities are "just like everybody else". Which, of course, is true. That means that some of them are heroically overcoming adversity, but it also means some of them are self-absorbed jerks.

Blame the lawyer surplus....

[rahvin112]

They are being sued because a lawyer saw a chance to extort money from Netflix. AFAIK this lawyer didn't even have any plaintiffs.

For those that aren't aware we have a HUGE surplus of lawyers in this country. I'd wager better than half the law school graduates these days can't find jobs. What that means in practical terms is that we have a whole lot of lawyers trying to survive by launching lawsuits in "creative" manners. In plain English there are a bunch of sleazy lawyers trying to extort money from anyone they can using their law degrees. You see this in suits like this and the blatant extortion going on in the copyright trolling regime. It doesn't help that the legal profession seems to draw sociopaths to the career.

Expect to see these type of lawsuits all the time for the next decade at least.

Re:Sense

[jythie]

Yeah, we normal people really stuck it to those degenerate disabled people this time! It is their own fault for being poor, otherwise the market would cater to them.