NAD Files Brief in Movie Captioning Case

Editor: Access to movies in the US is severe restricted for people with hearing loss, because of the lack of captioning. This issue is being addressed on several fronts. Here's a notice from NAD about their efforts on one such case.

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January 2009

The NAD Law and Advocacy Center recently filed a "friend of the court" brief with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit urging the Court to rule that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires movie theaters to display captions to ensure that individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing can participate fully and equally in the experience of going to see a movie.

Earlier this year, a federal district court judge in Arizona ruled that movie theaters are not required to display captions. The judge reasoned that captions alter a movie by changing audio content into visual content. The judge also relied on a statement made by Congress, which was repeated by the Department of Justice in the early 1990s, that the ADA does not require open-captioning of feature films playing in movie theaters. The judge interpreted these statements to mean that no captioning is required at all.

When the ADA was passed in 1990, the only form of captioning available was traditional open captioning, which involves the burning of captions onto the movie film. Since then, however, advances in technology have provided movie theaters with additional ways to display captions. Movie theaters may use a DTS-CSS projector (which can be turned on/off like captions on television) to display captions on the movie screen. Movie theaters may also display captions using the Rear Window Caption system. The NAD urged the court to rule that the newer forms of captioning provide movie theaters with additional ways to display captions that may be required to make movies accessible to individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Several organizations joined the NAD on its brief urging the United States Court of Appeals to reverse the federal district court judge and rule that captioning is required in movie theaters. These organizations include the American Academy of Audiology, American Association of the Deaf-Blind, American Society for Deaf Children, Conference of Educational Administrators of Schools and Programs for the Deaf, CSD, Deaf Seniors of America, National Council of Hispano Deaf and Hard of Hearing, National Cued Speech Association, and Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (TDI). The Alexander Graham Bell Association and the Washington State Communication Access Project (with the Hearing Loss Association of America, state and local chapter organizations, and the Arizona Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing) also filed "friend of the court" briefs.