Home » Four-Year Court Battle Between Deaf Advocates and Harvard Over Closed Captioning of Videos Proceeds to Discovery With Some Limitations
Four-Year Court Battle Between Deaf Advocates and Harvard Over Closed Captioning of Videos Proceeds to Discovery With Some Limitations
By Craig Simonsen on April 10, 2019
Posted in ADA, Investigations & Settlements, Lawsuits
By Kristina M. Launey and Minh N. Vu
Seyfarth Synopsis: Four years and two motions to dismiss based on the pleadings later, the National Association of the Deaf’s (NAD) online video captioning lawsuit against Harvard University is moving forward to fact discovery. On March 28, Federal Magistrate Judge Robertson in the District of Massachusetts denied the university’s motion for judgment on the pleadings with some notable discussion about whether websites are places of public accommodation under the ADA and limitations of liability for third party content.
Physical Nexus Argument Rejected. The First Circuit has held in a case about an allegedly discriminatory insurance policy that a business can be a public accommodation covered by Title III of the ADA even if it is not associated with a physical place where customers go. Harvard argued that this precedent did not apply to cases involving websites, but the Court was not [...]