Washington DC Captioning Lawsuit

April 2000

A couple of months ago, several deaf people in Oregon created quite a stir when they sued movie theaters for failing to provide equivalent access as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). You may recall that there was considerable discussion and debate within the hearing loss community concerning the specific technology mentioned in the lawsuit (Rear Window Captioning).

That debate could well heat up again, as a recent lawsuit filed in Washington DC continues the campaign to make movies accessible to people with hearing loss. Three deaf individuals sued Loews Cineplex Entertainment Corp. and AMC Entertainment, two of the large movie theater companies in the US, contending that their failure to provide captioning violates the ADA. The suit contends that reasonable steps to provide accessible movies are available to the theater companies, and that captioning should be provided on all movies within 180 days.

The companies contend that they do offer some open-captioned movies, and intend to offer more in the future. (Open-captioned movies have text printed on the movie, much like foreign film subtitles). The hearing loss community responds that, in many places, captioned movies are offered only once a month, and typically long after the movie is released. This makes it impossible for people with hearing loss to enjoy a first-run movie with hearing friends and family.

An additional difficulty is the limited number of open-captioned movie prints that are produced by the studios and the cost of adding open captions after the prints are released. Tripod Captioned Films notes that more theaters are showing open-captioned movies and they (Tripod) are having a difficult time keeping up with the demand.

Representatives of the movie theaters are connecting this suit with the one previously filed in Oregon, which called for movie theaters to provide specific ("Rear Window" Captioning) equipment. That suit caused considerable dissention within the hearing loss community, because many people with hearing loss prefer open-captioned movies to the Rear Window system.

The National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), which represents approximately 70% of the movie screens in the country, released a position paper that lumped the two lawsuits together and dismissed both. Excerpts from the paper are included below:

(excerpts from) POSITION OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF THEATRE OWNERS REGARDING LAW SUITS BROUGHT BY DEAF AND BLIND INDIVIDUALS

"Three hearing impaired individuals in Washington, D.C. today brought suit against two leading movie theatre companies under the Americans With Disabilities Act. Earlier this year, eight deaf individuals in Oregon sued four theatre circuits demanding that "rear window" technology be installed in theatres. One blind individual also brought legal action, which would require installation of a Descriptive Video Service ("DVS") technology for blind movie-goers. Both technologies were created and made available through the same organization, WGBH of Boston, Massachusetts, under the name MoPix."

"The National Association of Theatre Owners ("NATO") believes that the law suits are contrary to the position of leading national disability rights organizations, counterproductive to the needs of the lawyers' clients, and wholly lacking of legal merit. The nation's movie theatre owners are proud of their efforts to bring the magic of movies to our disabled patrons, and view these law suits as unfounded attacks on a cooperative industry."

"Brought under the Americans With Disabilities Act, the law suits attempt to require movie theatres to install specified equipment to provide access to disabled persons. But leading national organizations dedicated to improving access to public accommodations for disabled Americans are not parties to the law suits; have not announced any support for the suits; and indeed either do not endorse the technology demanded by the plaintiffs in the suits, or oppose any legal mandate of the technologies specified in the suits. "

"In the past two years, six different theatres in six different cities have dedicated screens for open captioned films seven days a week, 52 weeks of the year. Also in the past two years, 70 different theatres throughout the country have dedicated screens for open captioned films at least monthly or bi-monthly. More plans are in the works for more theatres."

"Deaf or hard of hearing patrons should work WITH the exhibition community by supporting the efforts to make theatres more accessible through the use of open captioning, not AGAINST exhibition by bringing unfounded legal action seeking the wrong solution. "