Disney is facing a class-action lawsuit over the way it provides access to its theme park guests with disabilities.
The suit was filed yesterday in California Superior Court in Orange County, the home of Anaheim's Disneyland Resort. The plaintiff is Trisha Malone of San Diego. (FWIW, a Web search did not reveal a person by that name living in the City of San Diego, but did turn up a person by that name in a suburb.) The suit claims that Disney's policies and practices "systematically discriminate against individuals with physical disabilities and violate their rights to equal access, privacy, and dignity."
The suit does not rely on the Americans With Disabilities Act, but rather California's 1959 Unruh Civil Rights Act. The gist of the filing is that retaining a line-skipping option for people with autism and other developmental disabilities, Disneyland violates California law by failing to provide "full and equal access" to people with other, physical disabilities. You can read the suit here, thanks to a document upload by Florida Politics' Gabrielle Russon.
Last year, Disney changed its policy for accommodating guests with disabilities. It limited its line-skipping Disability Access Service [DAS] to be one of many options for accommodating people of various disabilities, rather than offering the DAS pass as a catch-all solution, as it had before. [See Disneyland, Walt Disney World to change disability access plans.]
The lawsuit claims that some of the options that Disney now is offering are inherently discriminatory to persons with disabilities because they can impose burdens not imposed by the DAS pass. The suit also claims that the process of asking guests for information about their health condition may violate the federal government's Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
HIPAA does not prevent anyone from asking you about your health condition. It bars health care providers and insurers from sharing or revealing that information without the patient's consent. Disney allows and encourages guests to apply for accommodation via a video call before arriving at Disneyland or Disney World, in part to help protect guests' privacy. However, the suit alleges that if guests apply in person at the parks, an applicant's private health condition is at risk of being overheard. The lawsuit filing does not disclose the plaintiff's alleged disability.
A Disneyland Resort spokesperson responded: "Disney is committed to providing a great experience for all who visit our theme parks, and particularly our guests with disabilities who may require special accommodations. Disney offers a broad range of effective disability accommodations and has worked extensively with experts to ensure that our guests' individual needs are properly matched with the accommodation they require, and we believe the claims in this complaint are without merit."
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I'm certainly no expert when it comes to the evolution of DAS and the new services offered for disabled guests, but everything I've read about the new system is that it is not nearly as advantageous as it used to be, and the need to conduct a pre-visit interview is frustrating for many. I'm also not a lawyer, but it really feels like this suit is barking up the wrong tree, and expresses a criticism from a majority of ALL Disney park guests, which is that the in-park experience has significantly degraded from what it was a few years ago. While it's easy to pile on Disney for operational and procedural changes, those changes have more or less been needed due to fraud, misuse, abuse, and to level the playing field so every guest has an equal chance of having a memorable experience.
For as much as the evolution of FP to FP+ to Genie+ to Lightning Lane SU/MU/PP has made the average guest experience more complicated and normalized, the changes made to DAS have done the same for disabled guests. In reality, the plaintiffs in this case should be going after all the folks who abused and took advantage of the old DAS system, because that's why Disney had to change it and reduced its effectiveness for everyone who needs it to enjoy the parks. As with so many aspects of our society, it only takes one person (or small group of people) to ruin something for everyone. It's a never ending process with Disney establishing a policy/system and guests trying to find a way around or maximizing it then Disney making changes to eliminate the loopholes and keep people from overusing/abusing them.
I don't love the new system, but the DAS pass was always meant to accommodate those with autism spectrum or developmental or other nonapparent disabilities, not those with physical disabilities. Disney does provide fair and equal access to their attractions by having all queues be wide enough to accommodate wheelchairs and ECVs. DAS is the only way to accommodate people whose issue is not whether they can physically wait in the line, but whether they can mentally handle the wait.
It was only a matter of time before this happened. I hope they hit Florida with one as well.
I think it being abused was overblown but I also think Disney made abusing it so attractive. Every Disney mom in town was bragging about it on social media...DAS could be used an unlimited amount of times...fast pass now only once. They used to give you 2 pre selections. They routinely let you abuse and add more guests to your party. Not only that it knocked 10 mins off your wait time (not commonly mentioned but I've used it, it did). You could also pair it with genie plus and wait in literally no lines....between the two we rode tower of terror 3 times back to back...
Now the closest paid option at Disney costs up to 450 bucks a person!!!!! And you only get one ride!!!! Insane. You can't even park hop with it at Disney World ...I think Disney needs to have some kind of vetting, if you have an ada condition you get it and either make it fall in line with fast pass (meaning one ride per attraction) or lower the price and/or raise the value of PP 1600 extra bucks for a family of four for one day and one ride is insane...they need balance :/
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I hate to see people sue of all kinds of frivolous accusations.
Disney, Universal and other parks go out of their way to make everything they can accessible to all.
Then some clowns take advantage of these policies which in turn wrecks it for the ones who actually need it.
Remember a few years back some in Orlando were selling front of the Line packages because they had a ‘Disability’. They somehow got approved for this Skip the line pass and would sell it as Head of the line package insider deal.
They would take folks around the park for a Price with their access pass.
So, this is why they need to be vetted to ensure they actually need a Disability pass.
Yes, the buttholes of the world always wreck it for others.