9th Circuit Court rules Netflix isn’t subject to disability law [View all]
A federal appeals court ruled (PDF) yesterday that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) doesn't apply to Netflix, since the online video provider is "not connected to any actual, physical place."
Donald Cullen sued Netflix in March 2011, attempting to kick off a class-action lawsuit on behalf of disabled people who didn't have full use of the videos because they aren't all captioned. A district court judge threw out his lawsuit in 2013, and yesterday's ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upholds that decision.
The decision is "unpublished," meaning it isn't intended to be used as precedent in other cases. However, it certainly doesn't bode well for any plaintiff thinking about filing a similar case in the 9th Circuit, which covers most of the Western US.
At least one other court has come out the other way on this issue. Three months after Cullen filed suit, the National Association for the Deaf (NAD) filed an ADA lawsuit against Netflix in Massachusetts over the same issue. In that case, the judge found that Netflix was a "place of public accommodation" and would have to face the lawsuit against the disability rights group.
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http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/9th-circuit-rules-netflix-isnt-subject-to-disability-law/
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