When blind Union Metropolis resident Lisamaria Martinez sought assist from the Clerk-Recorder’s workplace employees to file paperwork for her new enterprise in 2019, she was repeatedly denied help — violating the People with Incapacity Act (ADA), a federal jury dominated.
CRO employees members refused to help Martinez with signing a fictitious enterprise title kind in 2019, stating that solely the enterprise proprietor might full the authorized paperwork, in accordance with courtroom paperwork. Although Martinez defined that she was unable to fill out the paper kind on her personal, courtroom paperwork say CRO employees and managers refused to assist Martinez till she left greater than 90 minutes later.
Martinez sued, and the authorized dispute didn’t conclude till final week, when the Alameda County Board of Supervisors accepted a $1.2 million settlement fee to her.
Whereas happy with the victory, Martinez’s lawyer Tim Elder expressed disbelief that the county let the case drag on for therefore lengthy.
Beneath federal regulation, private and non-private entities should present cheap lodging to folks with disabilities to make sure they’ve equal alternative to work and take part in public life, in accordance with the ADA. For blind folks similar to Martinez, this may occasionally embrace having a employees member learn or write on official varieties beneath their path.
“Her experience was time-wasting, frustrating, dehumanizing, and unnecessary. She would not have suffered it, had the ACC provided her with auxiliary aids and services as legally required,” Elder wrote to Alameda County Counsel Donna Ziegler and Clerk-Recorder Melissa Wilk in Nov. 2019.
Martinez had beforehand sued Alameda County in a category motion lawsuit in 2013 for failing to supply an accessible voting machine that gives audio help for sight-impaired folks. A federal courtroom dominated in October 2013 that Alameda County should guarantee blind and visually impaired voters should be capable to vote privately and independently throughout elections.
Within the 2019 lawsuit, Martinez sued Alameda County for discrimination. Elder stated that his shopper didn’t search damages for her lawsuit, solely a coverage change that will accommodate sight-impaired folks like her. County Counsel Donna Ziegler’s workplace fought the lawsuit as a substitute, claiming that Martinez had requested for authorized recommendation along with her paperwork that will require a notary, which couldn’t be legally fulfilled by a employees member.
County officers didn’t reply to a request for touch upon the case.
The lawsuit was litigated till 2024, when a federal jury in San Francisco dominated in favor of Martinez and awarded her $30,500 in damages. The $1.2 million settlement accepted by the Board of Supervisors represented authorized charges incurred over the trial, in accordance with Elder.
“I was faced with a choice: remain silent or fight against a clear injustice,” Martinez stated in an announcement with the Nationwide Federation of the Blind in 2024 following the decision. “In choosing to fight, I risked being told my rights were different because I am blind—a risk worth taking to ensure no other blind person faces this kind of discrimination.”
Elder stated the county’s dealing with of the case was unacceptable.
“(Alameda County) lost this case on every issue, required a federal injunction to issue, and subjected taxpayers to over $1.2 million in avoidable legal expense, not including the money spent on the County’s private losing defense firm,” Elder stated. “The Board of Supervisors and citizens should be outraged at this overly litigious mishandling of a meritorious civil rights issue.”
