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July 29, 2010 |
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| September 05, 2007 |
By: Billy Shields |
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row between disability advocates and the Office of the State Courts Administrator will take center stage Thursday at a hearing in Tampa. The two factions are struggling to find common ground over procedures, education and funding for accommodating the disabled in court.
The question of who funds accommodations for attorneys will be the focus of the hearing, in which the nonprofit Disability Independence Group, and the Equal Opportunity and the Law Section of The Florida Bar will argue to the Bar’s Judicial Rules of Administration Committee that the state desperately needs reforms to existing court rules and their interpretations.
“When you say that an attorney is not entitled to an accommodation in the courthouse, you will not have firms hiring people with disabilities because of the extra expense they are going to have,” said Matthew W. Dietz, a Miami-based disability rights attorney who is the vice chairman of the Equal Opportunity and the Law Section of The Florida Bar. This is an especially big problem for someone with a hearing disability, which tends to require accommodations that would represent recurring costs, Dietz said.
“It leaves people with a disability in a sort of a vacuum, and it shouldn’t be their vacuum. You’re denying someone their livelihood.”
OSCA officials argue that court accommodations are the financial responsibility of the lawyer. But they won’t comment on the matter because it is the subject of a lawsuit filed by Orlando criminal defense attorney A. Scott Harrison. The lawyer — who is deaf — sued OSCA, administrators of the 18th and 9th Judicial Circuits, and others alleging they discriminated against him by not paying for the real-time court reporter that accommodates his disability.
During the seven years he worked as an assistant public defender, Orange County paid the costs for the reporter. Now that he’s a solo practitioner, he contends he is being “seriously harmed by the discrimination of the defendants” and is seeking injunctive relief that would force the courts to pay for his accommodations.
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is unclear on the subject of attorney accommodations as different parts of the act appear to support different claims.
Title I of the act applied to employment and provides protection for employees including judges and court staff. Title II applies to state and local governments, including the judiciary. OSCA points to Title I as the part of the ADA that should govern accommodations in court. OSCA maintains that attorneys or their employers must cover the cost of accommodations. The DIG and EOLS contend that Title II covers court access accommodations and mandates the public cover the cost.
Advocates such as Dietz charge that the Title II interpretation creates a scenario that makes it impossible for disabled solo practitioners like Harrison to practice and encourages law firms to discriminate — since under the current ADA interpretation the employer or attorney bears the cost.
In addition to slipping through the cracks created by the two sections of the ADA, funding is becoming an increasingly tangled issue imbedded in layers of government because of recent changes concerning the administration of Florida courts.
The maintenance of Florida’s court buildings — which would include structural issues like ramps — are the financial responsibility of the counties in which the courthouses are located. But the services and programs of those courts are the financial responsibility of the state. In other words, creating ramps, elevators or automatic doors would have to be funded from county coffers. But providing for something like sign interpreters for a witness in a trial would come out of the state’s budget.
A recent Daily Business Review story described the plight of persons with disabilities in Florida’s court system in terms of access to buildings and fair employment practices.
Advocates are also ready to stump for a package of systemwide reforms that fall under two other basic categories: Providing disabilities accommodations to everyone using the court system and documenting those accommodations and implementing a standardized, public grievance procedure.
OSCA officials view the EOLS and DIG’s claims as misconceptions. They contend that accommodations for everyone involved in court as well as a grievance procedure already exist.
Debra G. Howells, the statewide ADA coordinator for the courts system and a named defendant in the Harrison suit, said a grievance procedure has been on the books for eight years.
“The Florida court system established a grievance procedure. My understanding of the process is that they got a statewide working group and they developed a model. And subsequently every trial and appellate court did adopt a grievance procedure,” she said. She noted that her office is working on making the grievance procedures easier to understand: “It’s something I’ve been working on with my Web master.”
Dietz disputed the OSCA claim. He said the mechanisms and accommodations are not universally applied nor are they publicly advertised if they exist at all.
“If there are misconceptions, then the policy is not clear. And that’s the problem,” he said. “When the policies and procedures are not clear to every user of the system, there’s something very wrong.”
On the subject of accommodations for those with disabilities who simply wish to visit a courtroom, Howells said, “If they walked into court that day and requested an accommodation, we would certainly try to provide it.”
After Thursday’s hearing, the Judicial Rules of Administration Committee can recommend rule changes to the Florida Supreme Court, which in turn may adopt or reject them. If the state’s highest court accepts those recommendations, it would make statewide changes in court administration and likely satisfy the claims Harrison made in his suit, according to Dietz.
If reform recommendations go to the Florida Supreme Court, disability advocates may have an ally in Chief Justice R. Fred Lewis. He is a reformer in the disabilities area who has a daughter with sight and hearing impairments.
Billy Shields can be reached at bshields@alm.com or at (305) 347-6649.
Dade County Courthouse photo by A.M. Holt
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