2007 Issue 1 - New York City Bar Association

C I V I L R I G H T S, I N F O R M A T I O N T E C H N O L O G Y L A W,
L E G A L I S S U E S A F F E C T I N G P E O P L E W I T H D I S A B I L I T I E S
Most recently, the court in National Federation for the Blind v. Target
Corp. 60 adopted similar reasoning, allowing a lawsuit that challenges the
inaccessibility of Target stores’ Website to proceed only insofar as the complaint
alleges a nexus between the Website and the physical stores.
Courts reaching the correct conclusion—that “public accommodations”
are not limited to physical structures—do so by emphasizing the
list of “public accommodations” in the “definitions” section of the statute.
This line of cases is led by the Supreme Court itself, which characterizes
Title III as prohibiting discrimination “by public accommodations,”
as opposed to the “places” they operate. 61 In Carparts Distrib. Ctr. Inc. v.
Auto Wholesalers of New England, Inc., 62 the First Circuit concluded that an
“insurance office” (a “service establishment” under Title III) might be
prevented from discriminating against a person with a disability in the
insurance it offered, regardless of whether the insurance company occupied
a physical space. (“Congress clearly contemplated that ‘service establishments’
include providers of services which do not require a person to
physically enter an actual physical structure.”)
The definition of “public accommodation” . . . provides an
illustrative list which includes a “travel service,” a “shoe repair
service,” an “office of an accountant, or lawyer,” a “professional
office of a healthcare provider,” and “other service establishments.”
The plain meaning of the terms do not require
“public accommodations” to have physical structures for people
to enter. . . . Many travel services conduct business by telephone
or correspondence without requiring a customer to enter an
office . . . . Likewise, one can easily imagine the existence of
other service establishments conducting business by mail and
phone without providing facilities for their customers to enter
. . . . It would be irrational to conclude that persons who enter
an office to purchase services are protected by the ADA, but
persons who purchase the same services over the telephone or
by mail are not. Congress could not have intended such an
absurd result.” 63
60. 452 F. Supp. 2d 946 (N.D. Cal. 2006).
61. PGA Tour, Inc., 532 U.S. at 682, Spector v. Norwegian Cruise Line Ltd., 545 U.S. 119,
125 S. Ct. 2169, 2176 (2005) (“Title III of the ADA prohibits discrimination against the
disabled in the full and equal enjoyment of public accommodations”) (emphasis added).
62. 37 F.3d 12 (1 st Cir. 1994).
63. Id. at 19 (internal citation omitted). On remand, the District Court incorrectly asserted
that the Regulations “define[] a public accommodation as ‘a facility . . . ’” 987 F. Supp. 77, 80
T H E R E C O R D
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