Finding Out About the ADA

In this episode, we answer three ADA questions:

What is the ADA doing to inform the public about the ADA itself?

Is there one website to find out about the ADA in the court system?

Are ADA violations typically resolved in civil or criminal court?

Transcript

Hello.
Welcome to Ask About the ADA podcast, the show where we answer your questions about the Americans with Disabilities Act and how it applies to your everyday life.
I'm Joe Zesski, the program manager here at the Northeast ADA Center, the center that serves New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and The US Virgin Islands.
And you can always contact us or your local ADA Center by dialing the same phone number, +1 (800) 949-4232.
On today's episode, we're gonna answer three different questions that we received through our technical assistance telephone number.

Let's get started and jump in with the first question.
And here it is.
What is the ADA doing to inform the general public about the ADA itself?
I've never seen posters, flyers, or other information placed in common areas.
Instead, I've only seen information on human resource boards.

It's important to keep in mind here that the ADA is not enforced by any one single entity or federal agency.
In fact, it's enforced by multiple different federal agencies, and all of them have responsibilities for enforcing different regulations under the law.
And in the law itself, there is no requirement to post information publicly.
That being said though, within the law, there is language that empowers federal agencies to provide technical assistance on the Americans with Disabilities Act.
And in fact, the ADA centers, as I was just talking about them a few seconds ago, they are a result of that requirement to provide technical assistance to the public on the Americans with Disabilities Act.

So the work that we do at the ADA Centers comes from within the law itself, and is required by the law in its own, provisions.
Let's go to our second question.
Is there one website I can go to find out information about the Americans with Disabilities Act in the court system?
The answer here is no.
Enforcement activity around the ADA is typically found on different federal agency websites.

One of the main ones that I would suggest going to is ada.gov.
That is the website that the Department of Justice puts out to provide information about the Americans with Disabilities Act and the different regulations that it enforces.
It also publicizes different settlement agreement activities as well as consent decrees that the Department of Justice is involved in, and they are very active.
You also need to look at websites by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or the Department of Transportation to see other enforcement activities that those different agencies are involved in.
But in terms of private lawsuits, there is no one central place, that is easily accessible or usable for the general public or the single individual.

Different law groups often gather and collect information about lawsuits that involve different titles of the ADA.
For example, some groups gather information about title three, or some groups particularly focus on web accessibility.
However, there is no one single source that you can go to to find out all that information, and so it's important to try to gather from different resources or locate reputable websites and places of information to go to in order to stay on top of that kind of information.
Our third and final question for today's episode is the following.
Are ADA violations typically resolved in civil or criminal court?

And the answer here is a little bit complex.
First of all, as you heard me just reference, a lot of enforcement or violations, if you will, of the ADA is done by different federal agencies that are given responsibilities for enforcing different titles or pieces of the ADA.
For example, the Department of Justice enforces much of title two and three.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforces title one, which deals with employment, etcetera.
The ADA allows private individuals to file lawsuits, but those are not criminal lawsuits, rather they're civil matters involving civil rights.

So an individual brings their ADA lawsuit in either state or federal court, and pursues it that way.
So an individual does have the remedy of a civil lawsuit under the ADA, but again, it is not a criminal matter or issue.
That's it for today's episode of Ask About the ADA.
If you have a question about the Americans with Disabilities Act, please feel free to contact your local ADA center here at the Northeast ADA.
You can reach us at northeastada.org.

You can visit us on the web.
You can contact us through our +1 (800) 949-4232, or email us at northeastadapodcast@outlook.com.
Thank you for listening, and we look forward to joining you again in the future.