Court Opinion

ID: 9627638
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:49:21.835775+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:36:03.000801
License: Public Domain

KEITH, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part, and dissenting in part.
While I concur with the majority concerning most of the claims brought by the plaintiffs in this case, I cannot agree that summary judgment is appropriate for determining whether Hardin County violated the ADA by denying Plaintiffs Blake and Odis Tucker the equal opportunity to a phone call after their arrests.
The Tuckers are deaf and mute, and the question regarding their post-arrest treatment is straightforward: Whether Hardin County may, under the ADA, use jail officials to carry out the phone call guaranteed to the Tuckers by Tennessee law, rather than providing an acceptable auxiliary device? To dismiss this complaint without allowing a reasonable jury to address this question is entirely premature.
Summary judgment is appropriate only “if the pleadings, the discovery and disclosure materials on file, and any affidavits show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). In making this determination, we draw all inferences in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986).
There are two genuine disputes of material fact that support denial of Hardin County’s claim at the summary judgment stage: (1) whether the accommodation provided to the Tuckers was adequate; and (2) whether providing an acceptable auxiliary telecommunication device for the deaf (“TDD”), such as a teletypewriter (“TTY”) phone, would cause Hardin County undue hardship.
I. Whether Hardin County provided an adequate auxiliary aid or service
The ADA demands that “[n]o individual shall be discriminated against on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation.” 42 *543U.S.C. § 12182(a). This protection extends to those detained in a county jail. See Penn. Dep’t of Corr. v. Yeskey, 524 U.S. 206, 210, 118 S.Ct. 1952, 141 L.Ed.2d 215 (1998) (“State prisons fall squarely within the statutory definition of ‘public entity.’ ”). The ADA also requires public entities to provide accommodations that allow disabled individuals to enjoy the same services provided to non-disabled persons. Pursuant to the Department of Justice’s Regulation, 28 C.F.R. § 35.160(b)(1), “[a] public entity shall furnish appropriate auxiliary aids and services where necessary to afford an individual with a disability an equal opportunity to participate in, and enjoy the benefits of, a service, program, or activity conducted by a public entity.” (emphasis added). “In determining what type of auxiliary aid and service is necessary, a public entity shall give primary consideration to the requests of the individual with disabilities.” Id. at § 35.160(b)(2). The definition of auxiliary aids includes:
Qualified interpreters, note takers, transcription services, written materials, telephone handset amplifiers, assistive listening devices, assistive listening systems, telephones compatible with hearing aids, closed caption decoders, open and closed captioning, telecommunications devices for deaf persons (TDD’s), videotext displays, or other effective methods of making aurally delivered materials available to individuals with hearing impairments.
28 C.F.R. § 35.104(1).
The Department of Justice has further clarified the meaning of this policy in its answers to “Commonly Asked Questions About the Americans With Disabilities Act and Law Enforcement,” stating:
Arrestees who are deaf or hard of hearing, or who have speech disabilities, may require a TDD for making outgoing calls. TDD’s must be available to inmates with disabilities under the same terms and conditions as telephone privileges are offered to all inmates, and information indicating the availability of the TDD should be provided.1
A post-arrest phone call is “a service” under the ADA, and Hardin County provides this service to all non-disabled persons who are arrested.2 Under Tennessee law:
[n]o person under arrest by any officer or private citizen shall be named in any book, ledger or any other record until after the person has successfully completed a telephone call to an attorney, relative, minister or any other person that the person shall choose, without undue delay.
T.C.A. § 40-7-106(b). Based on this state-mandated post-arrest service, we must therefore assess whether there are any genuine material issues of fact as to whether Hardin County failed to provide the Tuckers with an “equal opportunity to participate in [this] ... service” by “furnishing] appropriate auxiliary aids and services!.]” 28 C.F.R. § 35.160(b)(1) (emphasis added).
There is no question in the record that Hardin County recognized that the Tuckers were deaf and mute and yet consciously decided not to provide a TDD device such as a TTY phone. After they were *544arrested, the Tuckers requested a TTY device. Although the ADA mandates that “[i]n determining what type of auxiliary aid and service is necessary, a public entity shall give primary consideration to the requests of the individual with disabilities,” id. at § 35.160(b)(2), Hardin County failed to provide a TTY device or even any of the acceptable auxiliary aids listed under 28 C.F.R. § 35.104(1). In fact, in the ten years following the ADA’s mandate, the County failed to acquire any of these accommodations for deaf or mute detainees. Rather than furnishing any of these aids, the County provided what the district court characterized as the “assistance of the jailers,” untrained and unqualified prison officials. Tucker v. Hardin County, 448 F.Supp.2d 901, 906-07 (W.D.Tenn. 2006).
Title II requires that public entities provide “auxiliary aids and services ... to afford an individual with a disability an equal opportunity to participate in, and enjoy the benefits of, a service, program, or activity,” 28 C.F.R. § 35.160(b)(1), and there is more than sufficient evidence here that Hardin County may have violated this duty. The majority and the Eleventh Circuit ruling it cites,3 however, merely gloss over the harms created by Hardin County’s approach.
Foremost, it seems highly suspect and potentially very harmful to require deaf and mute detainees to rely on the “assistance of the jailers” — the very officials who placed them under arresfc-An carry out the phone call to which these detainees are entitled under Tennessee law. First, there is no guarantee that an untrained officer would be willing or able to communicate with persons who are both deaf and mute effectively enough to express their ideas in the manner they would be conveyed via telephone or TTY call. The regulation defining auxiliary aids includes “qualified interpreters, note takers, [and] transcription services,” and nothing in the record suggests that the officers used to make the phone calls here received any training in communicating with deaf and mute persons. 28 C.F.R. § 35.104(1) (emphasis added).
Second, for the same reason non-disabled detainees are guaranteed opportunities to place phone calls — and are not merely asked to provide jail officials with phone numbers to call on their behalf — a reasonable jury could easily conclude that the ADA requires Hardin County to give deaf and mute detainees an “equal opportunity” to place calls themselves. Just as we are unwilling to excuse the absence of wheelchair ramps in situations in which individuals could be physically carried in and out of buildings, a reasonable jury could find that the ADA does not excuse the absence of TDD accommodations simply because officers offer to make calls on behalf of disabled individuals. And a reasonable jury could also conclude that such an approach might not only be harmful to the Tuckers, but would also seem to undermine the ADA itself.
The assessment of Tuckers’ differential treatment versus non-deaf and non-mute detainees and the extent to which they were harmed are genuine issues of material fact. These considerations must be assessed by a jury and are therefore inappropriate for summary judgment.
II. Whether providing a TTY phone would be unduly burdensome
Hardin County may be excused from providing any of the appropriate accommodations required by law if doing so would cause “undue financial and administrative burdenf ],” 28 C.F.R. § 35.164. Again, how*545ever, this assessment is a factual one that should be addressed by a jury. In a recent case, the Tenth Circuit denied a defendant county’s summary judgment motion against a hearing impaired individual’s lawsuit for denial of access to a TTY device after his arrest. Robertson v. Las Animas County Sheriff’s Dep’t, 500 F.3d 1185, 1196 (10th Cir.2007). Unlike the majority, the Tenth Circuit properly found that the question of whether requiring TTY phones to arrestees causes undue financial and administrative burden “pres-entad] a question of fact.” Id. at 1199.
The TTY device was designed precisely for the purpose the plaintiffs in Robertson and this case envision. Despite the availability of such options, Hardin County failed to provide a TTY device or any of the other eleven alternatives mentioned under 28 C.F.R. § 35.104(1). In refusing to require any of these accommodations when they are so obviously necessary and so easily available, the majority takes a step backward in our efforts to uphold the rights of disabled individuals guaranteed by the ADA. While my colleagues may disagree on the question of whether using an officer to make a post-arrest call for hearing-impaired or mute detainees is an appropriate “auxiliary aid and service,” it is clear that such an assessment is a factual one that is to be addressed by a jury.
For these reasons, I dissent from this portion of the majority’s ruling.

. "Commonly Asked Questions About the Americans With Disabilities Act and Law Enforcement,” available at http://www.usdoj. gov/crt/ada/q & a_law.htm (emphasis added).

. Interpreting the ADA, this Court has held that "the phrase 'services, programs, or activities’ encompasses virtually everything that a public entity does.” Johnson v. City of Saline, 151 F.3d 564, 569 (6th Cir.1998) (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 12132).

. Bircoll v. Miami-Dade County, 480 F.3d 1072 (11th Cir.2007).