Center for Independence of the Disabled v. Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Background

The plaintiffs are individuals and nonprofit organizations suing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York City Transit Authority, and officials sued in their official capacities. They bring a class action on behalf of people who use or seek to use the New York City subway system and have disabilities requiring elevator access. The claims arise under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the New York City Human Rights Law. The plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief, attorneys’ fees, and costs.

The case returned to the district court after the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated an earlier grant of summary judgment for the defendants and ordered further consideration of accommodations during elevator outages. The Second Circuit had held that the subway system as a whole provided meaningful access as a matter of law, but that factual disputes remained about the hardships experienced at particular stations during outages.

The defendants renewed their motion for summary judgment. Summary judgment is a decision without a trial that is appropriate only when there is no genuine dispute about facts that could affect the outcome and the moving party is entitled to judgment under the law.

The defendants’ existing transportation alternatives

The defendants identified several alternatives for riders during elevator outages: redundant elevators at some stations, transfers to other subway lines, traveling in the opposite direction to the next accessible station and then transferring back, accessible buses, and, in some circumstances, Access-A-Ride paratransit service.

The court held that there was no genuine dispute of material fact about the reasonableness of back-riding and the accessible bus system when considered together with the other available transportation options. The plaintiffs had not identified a workable way to reduce the delay caused by back-riding or shown what delay would be legally acceptable. As to buses, the court noted that the buses were wheelchair-accessible and generally ran parallel to subway lines. The plaintiffs’ evidence about service denials, traffic, snow, boarding delays, and crowding did not establish how frequently those problems prevented class members from accessing the bus system.

The court did not decide whether Access-A-Ride, standing alone, was a reasonable accommodation. It stated that the question was unnecessary to resolve because it had already found back-riding and buses reasonable accommodations.

The plaintiffs’ proposed accommodations

The plaintiffs proposed station-to-station shuttle buses, a policy promoting the installation of redundant elevators, on-board announcements about elevator outages, and additional employee training.

The court concluded that the shuttle proposal was not shown to be facially reasonable and would impose an undue hardship on the defendants. The proposal was described only generally, and the evidence indicated that shuttles would use the same buses and bus stops as the existing bus system while potentially taking longer to arrange.

The court likewise concluded that a policy promoting future installation of redundant elevators was not a facially reasonable accommodation for current outages. It would not help riders during a spontaneous outage before additional elevators were installed, and the court found that such a policy would create an undue hardship by interfering with obligations established through class-action settlements in other cases.

Elevator-outage notifications

The defendants’ notification system receives outage information from electronic monitoring equipment, station personnel, and members of the public. After the central control desk investigates and confirms an outage, the defendants notify the public through the MTA website, mobile application, email and text alerts, in-station screens, signs at elevators, the trip-planning function, station personnel, intercoms, and the 511 telephone line.

The court found genuine factual disputes about whether the system provides sufficiently prompt and accurate information. The evidence raised questions about the time between an outage and its report to the control desk, as well as the time between the report and public notification. The record also included evidence that some outages were not listed on the MTA website or mobile application. The parties disputed whether the control desk’s investigation took one or two minutes or, in some past instances, more than ten minutes and up to thirty minutes.

The court also found a factual dispute about the comprehensiveness of the notification system. Many notification methods depended on cellular or internet service, which was not available in all parts of the subway system. The plaintiffs presented evidence that riders sometimes received inaccurate or unhelpful information from station agents, intercoms, or the 511 line. They also proposed on-board announcements about spontaneous elevator outages. The defendants argued that such announcements would be difficult to provide accurately and would create logistical burdens, but the court found that the record did not conclusively establish an undue hardship, particularly because the defendants already made other time-limited or conditional announcements.

Ruling

Judge George B. Daniels denied the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The court held that the existing alternate transportation options were reasonable as a matter of law, but that factual disputes about the adequacy and accuracy of the outage-notification system prevented summary judgment. Because those disputes concerned the reasonableness of the defendants’ accommodations, the court declined to dismiss any of the plaintiffs’ ADA, Rehabilitation Act, or New York City Human Rights Law claims. The ruling did not determine the ultimate liability of the defendants or require a particular accommodation at this stage.