CMC Withdraws Request to Intervene in NJ Lawsuit

April 2005

Editor: You may recall that the New Jersey Attorney General (AG) has been very proactive in "encouraging" movie theaters to provide captioning as an accommodation for citizens with hearing loss. Four of the theater companies agreed early on to install Rear Window Captioning (RWC), and the results have been encouraging. The RWC folks put out a weekly list of movies showing at all the RWC-equipped theaters in the country. New Jersey has vaulted from just another state to the state with BY FAR the most RWC showings.

The NJ AG filed a lawsuit against Regal Cinemas, contending that they had not provided appropriate captioning. To ensure that consumers had a voice in the proceedings, the Coalition for Movie Captioning (CMC) asked in February to intervene in that suit. Then last month Regal Cinemas agreed to install DTS-CSS open caption projectors in many of its theaters and to show captioned movies during prime times. Apparently satisfied with this outcome, CMC has withdrawn its request to intervene.

The bottom line is that NJ now has what appears to be the most varied and greatest quantity of movie captioning in the country. Perhaps its time to initiate lawsuits in other states!

The CMC press release with additional information is below. Please contact Cheryl Heppner (cheppner@nvrc.org) for additional information.

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The Coalition for Movie Captioning (CMC) announced today that it has withdrawn its request to intervene in the lawsuit filed by the New Jersey Attorney General against Regal Cinemas. The request to intervene was filed in February 2005.

CMC applauds the New Jersey Attorney General's efforts to champion access to movies by deaf and hard of hearing people. Through the efforts of the New Jersey Attorney General, four major movie theater chains in New Jersey agreed to install Rear Window Captioning (RWC) systems on 39 screens to show captioned movies. The Attorney General then filed a lawsuit against Regal Cinemas. Regal Cinemas responded to the lawsuit in March 2005, saying it would install DTS Cinema Subtitling System (DTS-CSS) open caption projection systems in 11 of its 13 theaters in New Jersey and show movies with captions during prime times. Therefore, CMC has withdrawn its request to intervene in the lawsuit filed by the New Jersey Attorney General against Regal Cinemas.

CMC asked to "intervene" in the New Jersey movie captioning lawsuit. The intent of this request was not to oppose the New Jersey Attorney General, but to have a seat at the table with and on the side of the Attorney General as an "intervening plaintiff." In past movie captioning lawsuits, CMC has filed "friend of the court" briefs that provided information to the courts. In addition, on one occasion, CMC commented on a proposed settlement. CMC has never participated directly in a movie captioning lawsuit. CMC member organizations unanimously agreed to ask the court for permission to intervene in the New Jersey movie captioning lawsuit - a legal process that would allow CMC to participate directly.

CMC believed its presence would be beneficial because CMC has a long history of working on movie captioning issues. CMC's member organizations are major national deaf and hard of hearing consumer organizations that have members, chapters, or state associations in New Jersey. CMC felt it could play a supportive role and work with New Jersey deaf and hard of hearing residents and organizations to ensure the best possible outcome. CMC member organizations wanted to ensure that their chapters, state associations, and members in New Jersey were represented and could participate in the New Jersey movie captioning lawsuit. One way to achieve that goal was for the court to approve CMC's request to intervene.

The best outcome, from the perspective of advocates and deaf and hard of hearing consumers, is to have captioned movies shown in neighborhood theaters all the time, but especially during prime times (Friday and Saturday evenings, Saturday and Sunday afternoons, and holidays). Equally important, the best outcome should include a commitment for increasing the number of captioned screens and captioned showings in the future. CMC believes strongly that deaf and hard of hearing people should have captioned movies today and that we must also lay the groundwork for increasing the number of captioned screens and captioned showings in the future.

CMC supports all forms of captioning: seat-based Rear Window Captioning (RWC), InSight Cinema open caption movies, and screen-based open caption projection systems like DTS-CSS and Dolby ScreenTalk. CMC's goal is access to movies through captioning by the means available today and new technologies as they evolve in the future.

New Jersey citizens now have three types of movie captioning options available - RWC, InSight Cinema, and DTS-CSS - to choose from in their neighborhood theaters. This is great news for New Jersey.