TRE Legal Practice (TRE) and Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) filed a disability rights lawsuit in California State Court against the California Department of Insurance (CDI) for its failure to ensure the accessibility of its licensing exam for insurance agents to blind applicants. The lawsuit also includes claims against PSI Services, the private entity that CDI […]
Category: Litigation
In a crucial decision upholding equal access to the Internet, on November 5, 2019, a state court in Alameda County validated the legal bases underlying a fraud whistleblower complaint against Conduent, Inc. and Conduent State & Local Solutions for developing a public website that is inaccessible to people with disabilities.
OAKLAND, May 20, 2019 (updated July 26, 2019) — TRE Legal Practice alleges that Conduent, Inc. defrauded taxpayers when the company built a $66 million state park reservation website that hundreds of thousands of Californians with disabilities cannot use. The suit seeks damages on behalf of the People of the State of California and injunctive […]
Nancy Langenberger is blind. She relies on a guide dog to help her independently navigate the world. Nancy’s Medicare Advantage health plan, Blue Shield Promise Health Plan (“Promise Health”), includes a transportation benefit through which plan members can arrange in advance to be dropped off and picked up from medical appointments. This benefit is important […]
Modern touchscreen systems, like other modern computers, phones, and tablets, are readily adaptable for use by blind people through mechanisms such as tactile keyboards that a user can feel nonvisually and audio ports for plugging in headphones so the system can “speak” privately to users. (Both of these are in widespread use at bank ATMs, […]
Despite the longstanding history of the Americans with Disabilities Act, employers are still failing to follow the law. In 2014, Alina Sorling, a veteran food service technician with over a decade of experience at Dignity Health’s hospital cafeteria, suddenly became blind. Ms. Sorling went on medical leave and successfully worked with the California Department of Rehabilitation to re-master everyday tasks, including using nonvisual techniques for cooking and proficiency with knives and hot grills. Instead of allowing her to work, Dignity Health fired her because it believed a blind person could not safely work in a kitchen.
In 2015, Tina Thomas, who is blind, tried to book a trip with Greyhound’s website, but her text-to-speech software couldn’t interpret Greyhound’s site. When she called instead, she was charged a “convenience fee” for booking by phone — even though she explained she could not use the website. Earlier this year, she tried again, but […]
We previously posted about how accessible mobile apps can greatly benefit blind people and how the ridesharing revolution is no exception. Earlier this year, in May 2016, the popular ridesharing services, Uber and Lyft, stopped serving Austin after the city passed an ordinance requiring fingerprint background checks by way of a contentious ballot initiative. Many […]
Ridesharing platforms such as Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar have the capacity to greatly improve transportation services for blind passengers. Now, blind people can use a smart phone equipped with text-to-speech to independently summon a driver, learn details such as the name of their dispatched driver, the estimated time of arrival, the amount of their […]
Alongside the Legal Aid Society Employment Law Center of San Francisco, TRE Legal filed a class action complaint in federal court against the Marriott hotel chain for its discriminatory treatment of blind employees and applicants. The complaint alleges that Marriott discriminates against blind and disabled employees by requiring its managers to use an inaccessible configuration […]