News &
Advocacy in Disability Rights
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News &
Advocacy in Disability Rights |
The following reports originate from a variety of sources, including the Associated Press. We're always on the lookout for news of interest. Send us news and if we use it here we'll send you a `Piss on Pity' button. Use the eMail below.
Riding the rails should get easier Job program Locked up Medicaid protection Driving regs Unfriendly skies Bar exams Front and center Mitsubishi slapped
A commuter train service in the San Francisco Bay area failed to provide access to passengers with disabilities in violation of the ADA and California law, a jury ruled.
Plaintiff Jane Presta, who commuted to college on the CalTrain service, walks slowly due to a chronic condition. She had complained numerous times that she was not given enough time to disembark from the train, and that she was hit by the closing doors many times and stuck in the doors three times.
CalTrain officials assured her that the train could not operate unless the doors were completely closed.
Then last February, the closing train doors caught Presta's wrist and the train traveled from San Bruno to South San Francisco with her hand stuck outside the train.
CalTrain officials testified at the trial that they rarely contact passengers with disabilities who complain about lack of access. The jury found that CalTrain violated Presta's rights and awarded her $37,000 in damages. Before the jury was scheduled to reach a verdict on punitive damages, CalTrain settled, agreeing to pay Presta $75,000 plus court costs and legal fees.
"This case vindicates the rights of hundreds of disabled riders who have been kept off the CalTrain trains or treated like second class citizens," said Presta's attorney, Barbara Cohen.
In announcing its verdict, the jury took the unusual step of urging the judge to order CalTrain to adopt a list of seven policy changes. The judge is considering the request.
A Wisconsin state program to help people with disabilities find jobs while retaining eligibility for Medicaid or Medicare has been awarded federal funding, the governor's office says.
The Pathways to Independence program will receive about $946,000 from the Social Security Administration. The experimental program waives a federal rule that denies state and federal medical benefits for disabled people who earn more than $500 a month.
"It only makes common sense to help the disabled secure health care coverage so they can pursue their own careers and help build our economy," Gov. Tommy Thompson said in a statement.
Beginning next January, the state plans to enroll 1,800 people in the program over the next five years. Wisconsin is one of nine states receiving the grants, totalling $4.4 million. Wisconsin's grant is the largest, the office said.
A Maryland woman was charged with neglect and false imprisonment after police raided her Lusby home and found a severely retarded woman locked in a room covered with filth and excrement, the county sheriff's office said.
Authorities said Wenderland Bernita Broome, 41, had been locking up the 29-year-old woman, a relative, for up to 12 hours a day for the last 19 years. Officials also said Broome had been locking her 91-year-old father in another room.
Acting on a relative's tip, a detective went to the house and found the retarded woman, naked and unkempt, in one of the bedrooms, all of which had been padlocked with chains. The room was bare except for a wood-framed box spring on the floor, and its window was painted over so that no one could see in, the detective said.
Broome was charged with two counts of false imprisonment and two counts of neglect of vulnerable adults. She was released on her own recognizance from the Calvert County Detention Center. The Calvert County Department of Social Services said that the retarded woman and Broome's father were temporarily placed with other relatives, pending permanent arrangements.
President Clinton announced a new regulation to give more protections to 20 million Medicaid patients in managed care programs, including access to specialists and emergency services. The protections, to apply in all 50 states, include anti-gag rules to ensure that health professionals can discuss all medical treatment options with their patients; disclosure of clear up-to-date information about benefits, plan operations and protections; a timely internal appeals process as well as an independent external appeals system for patients with grievances.
The regulation also provides for women patients to have direct access to gynecologists and obstetricians without having to get a referral or prior authorization.
Vehicles modified for people with disabilities would be exempt from some federal safety standards under proposed changes.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration developed the proposal, which aims to balance safety requirements while allowing for modifications needed to enable disabled persons to use cars, trucks and vans.
"Our transportation system for the 21st century must be inclusive in service," Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater said. "This proposal balances the safety and mobility goals for people with disabilities."
For example, a car in which the seat belt position must be changed would be exempted from the standard side impact crash test used on vehicles. Vehicles that require a structural change to or removal of the original steering shaft would be exempted from standard tests that make sure the steering wheel does not move by a certain amount. Cars would also be exempted from some occupant crash protection requirements, if other seat belt and anchorage standards are met. The government estimates that 383,000 vehicles on the road are modified for people with disabilities.
United Airlines and the German carrier Lufthansa agreed to pay $4,000 for violating federal law this summer when Lufthansa refused to carry a disabled United passenger on a flight that the airlines were sharing, the government announced.
It marked the first time the Transportation Department found that a U.S. carrier had violated a disabled passenger's rights on a "codeshare" flight operated by a foreign carrier.
"The actions taken here make it clear to all concerned that the horizons of U.S. air travelers with disabilities do not end at the U.S. border," Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater said in a statement. Although the Air Carriers Access Act applies only to U.S. airlines, all carriers providing air service to and from the United States are prohibited from engaging in unreasonable discrimination. Lufthansa was found to have violated this provision.
On June 17, a wheelchair-using passenger traveled from Seattle to New York on a United flight. He then tried to transfer to United Flight 3516 to Frankfurt, Germany, operated by Lufthansa, but Lufthansa staff refused to accept him for the flight.
The department statement said that because the passenger flew across county without assistance, and because he made it down the boarding ramp without help, he could have assisted in his evacuation from the aircraft.
United operates under a provision requiring that passengers be carried unattended unless they have a mobility impairment so severe that it prevents them from assisting in their own evacuation.
Under the terms of the settlement, neither United nor Lufthansa admitted any wrongdoing. Both, however, agreed to cease and desist from violations in the future, and United agreed to pay a civil penalty of $3,000 and Lufthansa agreed to pay $1,000. The airlines teamed up in January 1994.
A law school graduate with a reading disorder is hoping that a federal appeals court ruling in New York saying she is entitled to extra time to complete the state bar exam helps her to finally pass the test, a lawyer said.
Ruth Lowenkron, one of Marilyn Bartlett's lawyers, said the Long Island college teacher needs adequate time to compensate for her reading disorder and plans to take the test again. Bartlett had requested special accommodations when she took the test, including extra time, permission to tape record her essays and to circle multiple-choice answers in the test booklet instead of using a computerized answer sheet.
She sued the New York Board of Examiners in 1993 after the board denied her request, saying its expert on learning disabilities determined that she does not have dyslexia or a reading disability because she achieved successful scores on two word tests. A lower court said the bar-exam test scores were not fair because Bartlett did need help. The law-examination board appealed.
The appeals court agreed with the lower court, saying: "Reasonable accommodation of this disability will enable her to compete fairly with others in taking the examination."
After her lawsuit was filed, the board agreed that Bartlett, 50, could take the July 1993 bar examination - her fifth attempt þ with the accommodations she had requested. The board said it would not certify the results unless she won her lawsuit. Even with the accommodations, Bartlett failed. But Lowenkron said Bartlett was not given all the time she requested and was only notified of the accommodations the night before, a fact that affected her preparation and abilities.
"Even if she had received all the accommodations she requested, it doesn't mean she's not entitled to them again," Lowenkron said. Nancy Carpenter, executive secretary for the New York State Board of Law Examiners, said the board has steadily refined its procedures for defining and accommodating for disabilities. "I just hope there's not too much of a misconception that we are not fair to people with disabilities," she said. She said more than 400 of the 8,791 people taking the July examination applied for special accommodations and about 320 of the applicants received them.
Travis Freeman is blind, but that has not kept the 17-year-old senior from playing center for the Corbin High School Redhounds in this town of 9,000 in southern Kentucky.
Freeman cannot see the football. He cannot see the goalposts or his teammates or opponents bearing down on him, trying to get to his quarterback.
The play starts with his snap of the ball and usually ends with him still blocking, awaiting the referee's whistle.
"At times it's confusing, at times it's scary, but most of the time, once I get off the ball and I get my hands on someone, it's just like blocking like I could see," he says. "Sometimes it may be even better that I can't see, because . . . I don't rely on the visual technique of their being able to fake me out."
Freeman, who lost his sight five years ago after having bacterial meningitis, does not start but plays in nearly every game. "If someone's lined up on him, he's going to do as good a job on him as anybody would," Corbin coach Mike Whitaker says. "As far as effort and trying to do what we ask all of them to do, he does everything. He runs sprints blind - he does everything that he can possibly do."
Freeman was on the offensive and defensive lines on youth teams in the fifth and sixth grades, but in the summer of 1993 his days playing football seemed finished. Before he was to enter seventh grade, he came down with a severe sinus infection resulting from bacterial meningitis. At the University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington, his body temperature was 106 when he went into surgery and his head was so swollen that, "You couldn't even see my eyelashes."
"They told me that 70 percent of the people who have what I had die," he says.
Freeman's return to football was the idea of his eighth grade coach and was supported by his parents, Larry and Mary, once they got over initial reservations. "There was a lot of people that told me, `I can't believe you're going to let that kid play football,"' his father says. Ultimately, the couple decided that the benefits outweighed the risks.
"I want the assurance of knowing if Larry and I get killed today, he can take care of himself," Mrs. Freeman says, pointing out that football has helped her son avoid a life of isolation and dependence.
Not that Freeman needs much help in class. He's got an "A" average, is a member of the National Honor Society and is being recruited academically by the universities of Kentucky and Louisville.
Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America has agreed to pay $3 million to settle the complaints of people who claimed they weren't hired because they wore hearing aids, had asthma or other disabilities. The car manufacturer also agreed to change what the federal government labeled a discriminatory hiring policy.
Mitsubishi rejected 87 people at its Normal, Illinois factory because of disabilities, said Jean Kamp, a spokeswoman with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. "The investigation we did showed that when people applied for jobs at Mitsubishi and were given conditional job offers, they were then required to take a medical exam, which is OK," Kamp said. "But then, if the medical exam showed any kind of restriction at all, they would not hire them."
This settlement comes three months after Mitsubishi agreed to pay a record $34 million to settle an Illinois sexual harassment case. The ADA requires that employers take steps to reasonably accommodate workers with disabilities who are qualified to do the job. The $3 million settlement will be split between the 87 people who filed the claim. The payments will range from $10,000 to $120,000.
Also, there won't be any new hiring at the Mitsubishi plant until the manufacturer has revised its hiring policies. The personnel who do the hiring will be retrained, said Mitsubishi spokeswoman Gael O'Brien. "We believed that we were in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act," O'Brien said. "Where we were not, we have agreed to work with the EEOC to ensure that we fully comply." Mitsubishi also agreed to open its plant to the EEOC so officials can interview workers on the hiring process and review hiring documents.
Associated Press reports were used compiling this column.
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