Source: http://www.williamgoren.com/blog/tag/appendix/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 23:04:00+00:00

Document:
This week is a two fer. At 11 AM Eastern time, the United States Supreme Court will hear argument in Sheehan (my blog entry on that case can be found here). I promise that I will read the transcript of the argument and post my analysis this week.
This particular blog entry involves two different cases questioning whether the ADA applies to web-based only businesses, both of which were argued to the Ninth Circuit on March 13, 2015, four days AFTER Perez.
Earll involves the situation where a deaf individual wanted to be an eBay vendor but could not be because the certification that she had to do in order to become an eBay vendor involved having to listen over the phone, and she of course could not do that since she was deaf. Cullen is the California version of the case discussed in this blog entry.
Here is how the argument before Judges McKeown, Murguia, and Friedland went (interesting that I could not find a way to read the transcript or a way to view the oral argument with closed captioning. Not sure if that was my technical skills or the ways don’t exist…:-).
1. The statement of interest from the Department of Justice saying that the ADA applies to web only based businesses is entitled to Chevron deference.
A. The Department of Justice specifically says that they are interpreting regulations of the ADA in reaching this conclusion.
2. Weyer v. 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, 198 F.3d 1104 (9th Cir. 2000), is no longer good law in light of Spector v. Norwegian Cruise Line, Limited, 545 U.S. 119 (2005).
A. Quite a bit of debate ensued between the judges and the appellant as to whether Spector even applied.
3. The appellant never cited to either National Association of the Deaf v. Netflix , 869 F. Supp. 2d 196 (D. Mass. 2012), or to Doe v. Mutual of Omaha, 179 F.3d 557 (7th Cir. 1999), though the judges did in response to the appellee’s arguments.
4. A very technical discussion ensued as to whether certain arguments could be made in light of the way the documents were filed and the arguments made in those documents.
1. Weyer is the law in the Ninth Circuit and it insists on an actual physical place.
3. Doe v. Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company, 179 F.3d 557 (7th Cir. 1999), statement that the ADA applies to electronic space is dicta.
4. Attorney for eBay conceded essentially that it goes too far to say that any website is not subject to the ADA, but it is consistent with the ADA to say that web-based only businesses are not subject to the ADA. In other words, in essence, the attorney for eBay was essentially saying that National Federation of the Blind v. Target Corporation, 452 F. Supp. 2d 946 (N.D. Cal. 2006), is good law.
5. The attorney for eBay actually argued the Spector case before the United States Supreme Court, and he said the issue was not whether the ship was a place of public accommodation as a ship is most certainly a place. Rather, the issue there concerned foreign flag vessels and whether they were subject to the ADA.
1. The ADA contains gaps that could be filled in by the appropriate federal agency and those gaps should be given Chevron deference.
3. The Department of Justice interpretation of the regulations may be found in an appendix. A considerable debate ensued about whether the appendix was interpretation or whether it was a regulation. The attorney for Cullen eventually had to say under intense questioning by one of the judges on the panel that the interpretation was not a regulation but rather an interpretation codified as part of a regulation.
Cullen waived an independent disabled persons act claim but not the state law claims based upon the ADA.
1. There was an awful lot of argument about whether the Department of Justice interpretation of what the ADA requires and its regulations should be entitled to Chevron deference. Bottom Line here is that the United States Supreme Court will not have to wait until the Department of Transportation regulation discussed in Perez makes its way through the court system before deciding the level of deference interpretation of regulations if this case gets a hearing before the United States Supreme Court after the Ninth Circuit decides it. If the Ninth Circuit finds that the interpretation of the regulations is entitled to deference, then the issue is squarely before the United States Supreme Court per Perez. Therefore, if the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals holds that the Department of Justice interpretations of the regulations contained in their statement of interest and in the appendix are entitled to Chevron deference (as Perez makes clear, Chevron deference may not be the appropriate term since it is the agency’s interpretation of regulations that are involved here), then the issue will be squarely before the United States Supreme Court. While Perez did not come up by any of the attorneys or the judges in the argument, one has to believe that it will be a critical feature of the panel decision in this case. It is curious that none of the attorneys or the judges brought up Perez as that case, admittedly decided only four days prior to this argument, was very much lurking in this oral argument.
2. It is a pretty powerful argument when an attorney that has argued a case before the United States Supreme Court comes back with a statement saying that a particular case the appellant is arguing does not stand for what the appellant says because I argued that case and I was there. I am inclined to agree with that attorney. The issue in Spector was the foreign flag question and not whether the ship was a place.
3. The statement in Doe v. Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company that the ADA applies to electronic space is most certainly dicta as the case had nothing to do with that particular statement. That said, the fact that Judge Posner made that statement is an important consideration.
4. National Federation of the Blind v. Target got a big shot in the arm from this argument when eBay essentially says that it is good law. That is, eBay essentially conceded that a website if it is a gateway to a brick-and-mortar store, then that website must be in compliance with the ADA.
5. The attorney for eBay argument that Carparts was a policy driven decision and not a statutory based decision could have been made even stronger by saying that Congress amended the ADA with the ADAAA and they did not take the opportunity at that time to make it clear that the Internet was a place of public accommodations when they made those amendments to the ADA.
6. If EBay and Netflix lose, expect an appeal to the United States Supreme Court where the concerns of the concurring opinion in Perez will be squarely presented. If eBay and Netflix win and Earll and Cullen appeal, Perez will be the key there as well. If Cullen and Earll lose, there will be a real thing to consider as to whether they should even apply for cert. to the Supreme Court as it is entirely possible that by appealing, the United States Supreme Court will be given the opportunity to turn administrative law upside down and that is a risk that the plaintiffs may not want to take with respect to what it might mean for future cases.
Filed Under: ADA, Federal Cases, Final Federal Regulations, General, Proposed Federal Regulations, Title I, Title II, Title III, Title IV, Title V Tagged With: ADA, administrative procedure act, Agency interpretation of regulations, Americans with Disabilities Act, appendix, Carparts distribution center, Chevron, Chevron deference, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Cullen v. Netflix, Doe v. Mutual of Omaha insurance company, Earll v. Ebay, Inc. v. automated wholesaler's Association of New England, Internet, Limited, national Association of the deaf v. Netflix, national Federation of the blind v. target Corporation, Perez v. mortgage bankers Association, Spector v. Norwegian cruise line, title III, Weyer v. 20th century Fox film Corp.
Sometimes a case can have a huge impact on the ADA universe even though it is not an ADA case at all. Gross v. FBL Financial Services 557 U.S. 167 (2009) is one such case and today’s case is another. As is my usual practice, the blog entry has been divided into several categories: introduction; today’s case; the concurring opinions; the final rule from the Department of Transportation pertaining to transportation for individuals with disabilities…; The specific provisions of the final rule; highlights of the language of the final rule; why Perez matters; the appendix; and takeaways. The reader is free to concentrate on any or all of the categories.
Today’s case, Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Association, a unanimous decision from the United States Supreme Court decided on March 9, 2015 is another such case. In this case, the Department of Labor’s wage and hour division issued letters stating that it was their opinion that mortgage loan officers do not qualify for the administrative exemption to overtime pay requirements under the fair labor standards act. In 2006, the wage and hour division completely reversed course. In 2010, they reversed again. MBA file suit alleging that under the jurisprudence of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, when an agency does something like this, it must go through the Administrative Procedure Act’s notice and comment procedures.
The United States Supreme Court in a unanimous opinion, said the terms of the Administrative Procedure Act were very clear when it states that the notice and comment requirement does not apply to interpretive rules, general statement of policy, or rules of agency organization, procedure, or practice. Therefore, an agency was not required to go through the notice and comment procedures when it issues interpretive rules regardless of its interpretation in the past, and the line of cases from the US Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia saying otherwise was in error.
In reaching this conclusion, the majority opinion made a few additional critical points that are useful here. First, interpretive rules do not have the force and effect of law and are not accorded that weight in the adjudicatory process. Second, prior case law from the United States Supreme Court merely meant that an agency may only change its interpretation if the revised interpretation is consistent with the underlying regulations and was not in support of the line of cases stating otherwise from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Third, the Administrative Procedure Act does require an agency to provide more substantial justification when a new policy rests upon factual finding contradicting those underlying a prior policy or when a prior policy has led to serious reliance interests. To ignore both of those situations would be arbitrary and capricious.
That all may be true, but what is extremely significant about this case is the concurring opinions. The concurring opinions reveal that there are at least three justices of the United States Supreme Court that would go even further. To their view, it is simply not enough to say that interpretive rules do not have the effect of law because while they do not have the effect of law, there is a line of cases from the United States Supreme Court that requires deference to agency interpretations of regulations unless it is plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation. The three justices (Scalia and Thomas explicitly and Alito signifying he is leaning that way), believe that doctrine should be overruled as well, which brings us to….
On March 13, 2015, the Department of Transportation issued a final rule pertaining to Transportation for Individuals with Disabilities; Reasonable Modification of Policies and Practices. The final rule requires public transportation entities to make reasonable modifications/accommodation to their policies, practices, and procedures in order to ensure program accessibility. The necessity for the rules was mandated by case law that was finding against the Department of Transportation by holding that transportation entities were not obligated to make such modifications under the ADA because the Department of Transportation had no regulations explicitly requiring transportation entities to make reasonable modifications.
1. Recipients of federal financial assistance are required to provide reasonable accommodation to policies, practices, or procedures when the accommodations are necessary to avoid discrimination on the basis of disability unless there exist a fundamental alteration to the nature of the service, program, or activity or there exist an undue financial and administrative burden.
What is interesting about this particular provision of the final rule is the requirement that a defense exist where there exist an undue financial AND administrative burden. When I first saw this, I said to myself this can’t be right and so I double checked it. It turns out that under the implementing regulations for title I of the ADA, it is clear that undue hardship, which is a title I term, can either be an undue hardship in the financial sense OR in the logistical sense. See 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(p)(2). With respect to title III’s implementing regulations, it is clear that undue burden can be either financial or logistical. See 28 C.F.R. § 36.303(a). While I don’t have it handy at the moment, there is plenty of case law to support that undue hardship can either be financial or logistical and that undue burden under title II can either be financial or logistical. Nevertheless, the final regulations dealing with title II of the ADA, 28 C.F.R. § 35.150(a)(3) do refer to undue financial AND administrative burdens. It doesn’t seem that the Department of Transportation believes that both have to be satisfied because otherwise much of its appendix, more on that later, to this final rule would not make any sense.
2. Those providing public transportation, including fixed route, demand responsive, and complementary paratransit services must implement their own processes for making decisions on providing reasonable modification to their policies and practices. There is freedom on how to go about it but certain things have to happen. First, information about the process and how to use it must be readily available to the public, including persons with disabilities. Second, the process must allow for accessible means by which persons with disabilities can request reasonable modifications/accommodations. Third, the process must also provide for those situations where an advance request and determination is not feasible.
3. Requested modification can be denied in any of three different situations: a fundamental alteration of the provider’s services exist; providing the modification results in a direct threat to the health or safety of others; providing the accommodation is not necessary to permit the passenger to use the entity’s services for their intended purpose in a nondiscriminatory fashion (that is, while the modification might make things more convenient for the passenger, the passenger could nevertheless use the services in a nondiscriminatory manner without the modification).
4. All public and private entities providing these transportation services must have a complaint process in place. The Department of Transportation will look to take action where a complaint process is not in place, the complaint process is not being operated properly, the complaint process is not being operated in good faith, or a particular case raises a federal interest.
5. With respect to an entity receiving federal financial assistance, what is really interesting is that the final rule itself uses a bit of different language. The final rule talks about reasonable accommodations and not reasonable modifications. Reasonable accommodations is a title I term, whereas reasonable modifications are the terms used in title II and title III. Nevertheless, the final rule specifically uses the term reasonable accommodations but then says that reasonable accommodations mean the same thing as reasonable modifications under title II of the ADA and not reasonable accommodations under title I of the ADA. I find this all strange. I do not know why the Department of Transportation does not stick with the term reasonable modifications instead of going through a complicated endeavor to use the term reasonable accommodations in the final rule.
6. Whether a public entity or a private entity, it must have at least one person designated to coordinate its efforts to comply with nondiscrimination on the part of persons with disabilities (recipients of federal financial assistance due to § 504 regulations should already have such a person).
7. The final rule specifically defines origin to destination service and mandates that where an ADA paratransit operator chooses curb to curb service as the primary means of providing service, assistance must be provided to passengers with disabilities beyond the curb unless such assistance results in a fundamental alteration or a direct threat.
8. Public and private entities must give priority to methods offering services, programs, and activities to qualified individuals with disabilities in the most integrated setting appropriate to the needs of the person with a disability.
9. Public entities have until July 13, 2015 to get a complaint process in place.
10. In determining whether to grant a requested modification, public entities shall be guided by the provisions of appendix E, coming up next.
11. Perez matters because in the world of the ADA you have guidances and interpretive rules everywhere. The decision puts everyone on notice that the guidances and interpretive rules are at considerable risk of subsequent litigation. Further, calling a guidance something else, such as in this case attaching an appendix, is also at considerable risk.
12. The provisions of the final rule clearly suggests that the appendix only applies to public entities (See new 49 C.F.R. 37.169(d)), yet the appendix itself doesn’t seem to make that distinction.
Two points here. First, the rule as literally set up seems to suggest that private entities do not have to worry about the appendix. Second, it is clear that the appendix is the Department of Transportation’s interpretation of the final rule and as such may run into the problem of whether this interpretation will be granted deference per Scalia, Thomas, and presumably Alito, if their views prevail.
K. A passenger requesting that a paratransit vehicle navigate to a pickup point where it is difficult to maneuver a vehicle so long as the passenger does not expose the vehicle to a hazard posing a direct threat.
L. A paratransit passenger’s request for a driver to help him or her navigate an incline with the passenger’s wheel device. Same goes for assistance in traversing a difficult sidewalk or getting around obstacles between the vehicle and a door to a passenger’s house or destination unless such assistance results in a direct threat or leaves the vehicle unattended or out of visual observation for a lengthy period of time.
N. Where a passenger’s request for assistance means that the driver will need to leave passengers aboard a vehicle unattended or out of visual observation for a lengthy period of time, unless accommodating the request is a direct threat to the health or safety of the unattended passengers, which the Department of Transportation says “could involve direct threat,” in that situation.
The use of the term “could involve direct threat…,” Is extremely problematic in terms of what it might mean.
P. A passenger’s request for a telephone call five minutes in advance or at time of vehicle arrival.
10. A paratransit passenger’s request not to ride with certain riders.
11. Unless an emergency exists, a passenger’s request for a driver to lift the passenger out of his or her mobility device.
1. Granting a paratransit passenger’s request for a driver to make an intermediate stop where the driver would be required to wait is something the paratransit operator can or cannot do at their option.
1. A paratransit or fixed route passenger’s request that the driver take charge of the service animal may be denied. Caring for a service animal is the responsibility of the passenger or a personal care assistant.
True enough. But what does caring for the animal mean. See this blog entry of mine.
1. Guidances and interpretive rules when it comes to the world of the ADA are absolutely everywhere. Perez is putting everyone on notice that the ability of agencies to issue the guidances and interpretive rules is unfettered, but the days of such interpretive guidances and rules being given a great deal of discretion by the court may be coming to an end. Thus, agencies may have won the battle in Perez, but may be on the verge of losing the war.
2. These Department of Transportation regulations may be the perfect case for the Supreme Court to evaluate whether interpretive rules and guidances must be given deference by the courts. Apendix E is clearly an interpretive rule regardless of what you might call it, and the very nature of the rule takes away the individual case by case analysis that the ADA requires.
3. Apendix E on its face only applies to public entities. Therefore, if you are a private entity, a plausible argument can certainly be made that appendix E is not applicable. Also, nothing in the final regulation seems to suggest that appendix E would apply to a private entity accepting federal funds either.
4. Despite what the title II regulations say, I am not aware of any case law that says for something to be an undue burden it has to be both financial and administrative.
5. As I have mentioned before, with rare exceptions, I don’t like guidances and interpretive rules for many reasons. First, the guidances and interpretive rules avoid the notice and commenting process of the Administrative Procedure Act. Second, such guidances and rules can create their own problems (example-what does caring for an animal mean? What does it mean to say that an intermediate stop is optional but could rise to a fundamental alteration?). Finally, the guidances and rules are used as a crutch by attorneys so that attorneys don’t have to go through the individual analysis to figure out whether an undue burden/hardship or fundamental alteration exists. It won’t surprise me in the least if appendix E is used as a vehicle to test whether the doctrine of giving deference to interpretive rules and guidances is still good law.

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