Early Win for Deaf Plaintiff in VR Captioning Lawsuit
Posted on April 19, 2022
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This is an article about a lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed by a deaf man who sued a company about its failure to have captions on the virtual reality (VR) games and programs it offered the public. Without the captions the man could not use the games and other aspects of the company’s VR service. The company tried to get the case thrown out of court. The judge disagreed and said the lawsuit could continue. The case argues that not having captions is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and laws in New York. This is the first case about captioning Virtual Reality content that Lainey is aware of.
In 2020, lawyers for Dylan Panarra, a deaf man, filed a cutting edge lawsuit against the HTC corporation, one of the biggest electronics companies in the world. The lawsuit stated that HTC violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) because there is no captioning on the company’s Virtual Reality (“VR”) content housed on its subscription service called “Viveort Infinity.” That content included “thousands of VR content, including games, videos, and other apps and [...]