Here’s a toast to the end of a bad year. I don’t know anyone who won’t be happy to see 2020 behind us, but it’s worth looking back at how the law of accessibility developed in the last year.
Fair Housing Act developments were bracketed by two events, one of which was scarcely noticed but could be important. In February, to considerable fanfare, HUD rolled out its new Guidance on requests for accommodation concerning animals.¹ Its many disclaimers about not being a regulation and not having any binding effect were not enough for the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which opined on December 17, 2020² that the Guidance violated the Congressional Review Act because it was not submitted to Congress for approval before it took effect. It is not surprising that HUD ignored the law, but HUD often ignores both science and the law, so to the extent the Guidance reflects what HUD’s investigators will do it provides some useful information on staying out of trouble in a HUD investigation even if it isn’t helpful as a guide to complying with the FHA. More
Jeremy Horelick of ADA Site Compliance called my attention to a recently filed lawsuit making a novel ADA claim. In Panarra v. HTC Corporation and HTC America, Inc., Case No. 6:20-cv-06991 (W.D.N.Y.) the plaintiff claims that because he is deaf he is denied equal access to the virtual reality games and experiences offered by defendants’ website, https://www.viveport.com/infinity. This, he claims, violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and New York law.² The lawsuit can be seen as just the latest in a line of cases stretching back at least to Arizona ex rel. Goddard v. Harkins Amuse. Enterprises, Inc., 603 F.3d 666 (9th Cir. 2010), a case arguing that a chain of movie theaters was obliged to provide closed captioning for the movies it showed and even to Stoutenborough v. Natl. Football League, Inc., 59 F.3d 580, 582 (6th Cir. 1995), a case claiming that the NFL’s “blackout rule” discriminated against the deaf in violation of the ADA because it meant that for many games the only broadcast available was a radio broadcast. That chain of cases certainly includes Natl. Ass’n of the Deaf v. Netflix, Inc., 869 F. Supp. 2d 196 (D. Mass. 2012) since at the center of Panarra’s argument is the fact that since Netflix provides captions for its content it must be possible for HTC to do so as well. 
The Department of Transportation has issued it final rule concerning in-flight rules for animals helping those with disabilities.¹ The bottom line is straightforward. Airlines are only required to permit dogs trained to perform a specific disability related tasks in the cabin of their aircraft. This adopts the same restriction that the Department of Justice has long had in place for Title III public accommodations under the ADA (except that DOT, unlike DOJ, does not recognize miniature horses as service animals). In addition to limiting the kind of animal airlines are required to transport the DOT regulations permit airlines to do some things that DOJ would ordinarily not permit in a Title III context, including: 
On October 2, while the news covered President Trump’s admission to Walter Reed for treatment of Covid-19, Congressmen Lou Correa (D-CA) and Ted Budd (R-NC) introduced the bipartisan Online Accessibility Act, which they claim will “increase website accessibility and reduce predatory lawsuits filed against businesses.”¹ Will it work? That’s a reasonable question.
The title of today’s blog recognizes the gift bestowed by Judge Nannette Brown on everyone interested in the ADA in all its many details. Bailey v. Bd. of Commissioners of Louisiana Stadium and Exposition Dist., 2020 WL 5309962 (E.D. La. Sept. 4, 2020) is the latest of Judge Brown’s decisions concerning the dispute over stadium seating in the Superdome. Written after trial, the 64 page decision methodically dissects the law concerning concerning which standards apply to what parts of a facility after alterations, what the sight-line requirements for stadiums are under the various standards, including an exposition of the law concerning Auer deference and the effect of Kisor v. Wilke, how Title II program accessibility requirements fit into design/build standards, what kind of control is required for a person to be an “operator” of a public accommodation, when and how the “reasonable modification” requirement in Title III of the ADA applies to Title II entities, and last but not least the extent to which Title I’s “interactive process” requirement might apply to Titles II and III. The Fifth Circuit, and maybe the Supreme Court, will have the last word in this case, but if you are looking for a quick reference to almost every issue that comes up in a case involving altered facilities you can find it in this decision.¹