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Disney Parks facing lawsuit over Disability Access Service
by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix and first published in yesterday's Disneyland Park Update
Parents of 16 children with developmental disorders and cognitive impairments filed a lawsuit last Thursday (April 3, 2014) against the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, Inc. regarding the Disability Access Service. The lawsuit was filed in California, and alleges that the policy, implemented in October 2013 at both the California and Florida resorts, violates the Federal Americans with Disabilities Act and California's Unruh Civil Rights Act. The individual plaintiffs have filed additional counts, including breach of contract, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Walt Disney Parks and Resorts today issued the following statement:
"Disney Parks have an unwavering commitment to providing an inclusive and accessible environment for all our guests. We fully comply with all ADA requirements and believe that the legal claims are without merit."
The company also denies claims that the theme parks refuse to vary their policy to meet individual guest needs:
"Our Disability Access Service is designed for guests who, due to certain disabilities, cannot tolerate extended wait times at attractions. In circumstances where the service might not meet guests needs, we work individually with guests to ensure we are able to accommodate them."
The lawsuit acknowledges that people with developmental disorders and cognitive impairments can have a wide range of abilities and impairments, but note that the disabled plaintiffs, "like other persons with cognitive impairments are mentally and physically incapable" of:
Waiting for significant periods of time in a line or queue.
Traveling across a park to the site of an attraction only to be told to come back later. The lawsuit likens requiring disabled visitors to obtain a return time via the DAS program to be akin to placing food in front of someone who doesn't understand the concept of time, and telling them they cannot eat until later.
According to the lawsuit, both of these factors "will induce meltdowns in the large majority of persons with cognitive impairments, including the disabled Plaintiffs."
Along with these general issues, the lawsuit details the specific needs of some of the plaintiffs in an effort to show how DAS fails to meet their needs. For example:
One plaintiff must visit a specific list of attractions in a specific order.
One plaintiff must ride the same attraction over and over again.
One plaintiff has meltdowns that include a wild flailing of the arms.
One plaintiff simply shuts down, falls to the ground, and refuses to move.
The 176-page lawsuit details the differences between Disney's former Guest Assistance Card (GAC) policy and the new Disability Access Service (DAS), and contends the new policy fails to meet the needs of visitors with developmental disorders and cognitive impairments.
The lawsuit praised the previous GAC program:
"Prior to October of 2013, Disney's system for accommodating disabled persons special needs was universally enjoyed and appreciated by the community of persons touched by cognitive impairments… With the Guest Assistance Card, though guests were not always expressly promised immediate access to the attractions, immediate access was precisely what Disney, through its employees, routinely delivered. The disabled Plaintiffs caretakers knew they could rely upon immediate access when they visited the Disney Parks. Disney would not make them travel all the way to an attraction only to be told to leave and come back later; Disney did not make them wait in a line for more than a few minutes. Very little risk of over-stimulation or meltdown ever arose."
The lawsuit also praised Disney employees for their treatment of guests with disabilities with the previous GAC policy:
"[E]mployees always appeared to have been trained to care about Plaintiffs special needs. Actually, the employees were so talented in this role that it did not appear they had to be trained to care; it appeared they simply did care, naturally. They never did anything which was designed or prone to inflict embarrassment or shame or humiliation upon the disabled guest and his or her companions."
According to the complaint, all this changed on October 9, 2013 with the implementation of the DAS. Citing the company's years of experience with the GAC program, and the research that went into creating the DAS offering, the lawsuit states:
"Disney's knowledge is so extensive, and Disney's new Disability Access Service is so obviously discriminatory and so outrageously contrary to Disney's own knowledge of such guests special needs, that it is inconceivable that the Disability Access Services discriminatory impact upon Plaintiffs is an accident."
The complaint goes on to allege that Disney either deliberately designed the program to reduce the number of guests with autism or cognitive impairments who visit the parks, or saw that the number of these guests visiting dropped after the new policy was implemented and recognized this change as a "benefit" to the company.
The lawsuit also claims that Disney employees "turned overnight into a terrible new version of themselves" following the implementation of this new policy:
"[C]ourtesy was replaced with rudeness, acceptance with suspicion, understanding with impatience, consideration with discourtesy. The switch from respect for Plaintiffs needs to disdain for Plaintiffs presence was so broad, and so consistent, and so immediate, that Disney clearly trained its personnel to engage in behavior that is calculated to deter Plaintiffs from ever returning to the Parks in the future."
The lawsuit also points out the contradiction inherent in requiring guests to wait in line to demonstrate their need to avoid waiting in other lines:
"The entire DAS is predicated upon the concept that Disney will accommodate Plaintiffs, not by relieving them of the burden of waiting, but by relieving them of the burden of waiting in lines. However, without exception, when each Plaintiff who has visited the Parks since October 9, 2013 arrived at the Parks, he or she reported as required by Disney to Guest Relations, and was immediately met with an extended wait, in line, just to obtain the DAS card."
Additional claims and concerns in the lawsuit include:
Guests using the DAS program are required to "complete the stigmatizing procedure of having a photograph taken" in order to obtain a DAS card, where the same is not required of typical guests.
Guests using the DAS program usually wait longer than typical guests because of the need to return to a Guest Relations kiosk and get a new return time for each additional attraction.
Disney and/or Disney employees have anonymously posted messages and videos to social media sites "well-scripted, positive messages" about the DAS program designed to counteract complaints.
The company helped publicize news reports about "rented invalids" and other abuses of the GAC program to provide an excuse for implementing the new program.
Disney is inconsistent in providing individualized accommodation for guests with developmental disorders and cognitive impairments, giving some added benefits to those who complain loudest, while denying the same to other guests with identical needs.
The lawsuit also notes that Disney has a secret "Magic List" of guests who receive additional benefits not afforded to the disabled community at large:
"Disney began inconsistently, arbitrarily and capriciously doling out still another occasional accommodation, internally known as the Magic List. The Magic List is a secret list of persons to whom Disney will automatically extend, without the stigma of a Disability card, and without a mandatory photograph, and without the newly ingrained disrespect of Disney employees, five immediate-entry, no-appointment ride passes"
The lawsuit seeks an injunction against the current DAS program as it is applied to visitors with developmental disorders and cognitive impairments, and asks for a court-approved program to replace it, along with monitoring by the court to ensure Disney's compliance. The plaintiffs also seek damages, litigation costs, and "such other relief as this Court may find just and equitable."