Main > Everything Else
Blind people sue Target because they can't access Target's website.
ChadTower:
--- Quote from: shmokes on October 05, 2007, 05:20:29 pm ---
Specifically, being blind would be ---smurfing--- awesome. God, I almost want to gouge out my eyes just to get in on this law suit.
--- End quote ---
With all of the dead kittens around here I'm surprised were not all blind.
Xam:
--- Quote from: shmokes on October 03, 2007, 03:31:16 pm ---
--- Quote from: Chris on October 03, 2007, 02:17:51 pm ---
--- Quote from: KenToad on October 03, 2007, 02:15:28 pm ---I think this is just about shopping, at least according to the linked article from the first post.
--- End quote ---
For now.
--- End quote ---
Um . . . no, forever (or until Congress decides to change the law). When people talk about these law suits like this as being "frivolous", they commonly have severe misconceptions about how the court system works. If someone sued you for not making your personal website blind-person-friendly, the case would never go to trial. First, the blind person's lawyer would tell them that they had no case. But let's say the blind person insisted on suing you, and either represented himself or found an attorney who was willing to represent him in spite of advising him that he had no case (actually telling a blind client that there was any possibility of winning here would be grounds for malpractice, which would end the lawyer's career). Even here, the case will never go to trial. You'll simply file for a motion to dismiss for a failure to state a claim. This means that you concede all of the plaintiff's allegations. You don't deny any of them. But even assuming all of the plaintiff's allegations are true, they do not establish a cause of action.
The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment, State and local government, public accommodations, commercial facilities, transportation, and telecommunications. It also applies to the United States Congress. The ADA REQUIRES businesses to accommodate blind people. It specifically mentions retail stores; it specifically mentions blind people.
The law imposes a duty on me to not do anything that would create an unreasonable risk for you. If I negligently build a homemade flamethrower out of a Super Soaker squirt gun, and while I'm showing it off, accidentally light some bushes on fire and the fire spreads to your home, burning it down, I am liable. You have a cause of action, because the law REQUIRES that I exercise reasonable care, and the breach of my duty to you gives you a cause of action.
Now, if the law IMPOSES a duty on all businesses to accommodate provide effective communication for blind people (and, yes, it has been specifically extended to online businesses, in case anybody thought that might be an open loophole), and a business breaches that duty, how is it a frivolous lawsuit for a blind person to sue any more than the hypothetical I gave you above?
If you don't like it, blame the law, not the judiciary. It's not like this stems from some "activist court" (as people like to call them), reading a protection for blind people into the constitution where one doesn't exist. It's just a federal law. Congress passed it. It's not unconstitutional. Therefore Target is required to abide by it. If they break the law, injured parties have a case.
edit: thread's moving fast. added quote for clarity
--- End quote ---
The website is there for blind people to use. From reading the posts on this thread, the problem seems to be that the software the visually impaired are using, is having compatibility issues with the site. If this is true, would it not be wiser to petition the software companies to make a better product?
Xam
psik0tik:
--- Quote from: shmokes on October 05, 2007, 05:19:13 pm ---
--- Quote from: psik0tik on October 05, 2007, 09:07:31 am ---Yes they do sell they're website....almost all target commercials say in them "and visit target.com for more valuable info" That is luring people to the website hence it is a selling point hence it can be a "product of" target. And yes it is a service to but it generates income which makes it...again...a product. Go here and read the definition of a product before you start talking.
--- Quote ---In marketing, a product is anything that can be offered to a market that might satisfy a want or need
--- End quote ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_%28business%29
--- End quote ---
God, I laugh and I laugh. If you actually click on psik0tik's link, you'll be in for a rather humorous surprise. He selected his definition out of multiple offered. Here is the very first line of the Wiki:
In business, a product is a good or service which can be bought and sold. In marketing, a product is anything that can be offered to a market that might satisfy a want or need. In manufacturing, products are purchased as raw materials and sold as finished goods.
Psik0tik, when we're talking about a retailer's products, which of those three definitions do you think is the actual appropriate one to use?
--- End quote ---
It would be the marketing one since we are talking about a website. I didn't think I had to spell it out.
shmokes:
psik0tik, when we say that the ADA doesn't cover products we don't mean that you can find a line in the statute that says, "Products need not be ADA compliant." There is no "product exemption" in the ADA.
Understand, when we say that ADA doesn't cover products we are talking about the products in business definition from your Wikipedia link, because we're talking about the products that Target sells and their customers buy.
The ADA says that retailers must make accommodations to give blind people equal access to their facilities and services. We are pointing out to people that Tickle-Me-Elmo is not a facility or a service. It's just a product, and products aren't mentioned in the ADA. But taking their website, which clearly can be defined as either a facility or a service (and probably both) and saying, "Look, I found this definition of the word "product" that you could apply to the website, so the website must be exempt," is to completely misunderstand what we are saying.
It's not a matter of showing that their website is a product (which is a retarded claim anyway. You don't believe it. You just think it could be a convenient legal loophole that can be exploited). The ADA doesn't say anything about products. What you must show is that the website ISN'T a facility or service. Even if it is a product (it isn't in any relevant sense of the word), it is still subject to ADA regulations if it is also a facility or service.
Ed_McCarron:
Facility or service, huh?
How about the self-serve car wash near me with the braille labels on the push buttons? I"ll have to get pics next time I'm there.
And don't tell me that they use the same consoles for the walk-up car washes.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version