Deaf and Hard of Hearing Community Wants Involvement in Movie Access Lawsuit

The law firm of Cole, Schotz, Meisel, Forman & Leonard, P.A., working with the National Association of the Deaf (NAD), filed a request with the Superior Court of New Jersey to participate in the lawsuit filed by the New Jersey Attorney General against Regal Cinemas. The New Jersey Attorney General will oppose the request to allow the deaf and hard of hearing community to participate in the lawsuit against Regal Cinemas.

The request was filed on behalf of the Coalition for Movie Captioning (CMC), the New Jersey Association of the Deaf (NJAD), and Meghan Rainone, a deaf resident of New Jersey. CMC, NJAD and Rainone took this action to ensure that the deaf and hard of hearing community’s views are represented in this lawsuit. CMC, NJAD, and Rainone support instituting a variety of captioning systems with the flexibility to include future systems as they become available.

In August 2004, CMC learned that the New Jersey Attorney General was negotiating with film distributors and theaters concerning movie captioning. CMC offered information, experience and expertise concerning movie captioning to the Attorney General. CMC also expressed concern that deaf and hard of hearing residents of New Jersey were not consulted or participating in the negotiations related to movie captioning. Those concerns were ignored and within a month, the New Jersey Attorney General had signed agreements with four theater chains in New Jersey. The Attorney General then informed representatives of the deaf and hard of hearing community in New Jersey about those agreements and filed a lawsuit against a fifth movie chain, Regal Cinemas.

The settlement agreements resulted in the adoption of seat-based Rear Window Captioning systems as the exclusive and sole means of compliance with the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination. Further, the number of caption display systems to be installed under the settlement agreements is limited, and no plans exist to increase that number in the future. CMC, NJAD, and Rainone believe these settlement agreements do not sufficiently ensure the deaf and hard of hearing community a choice of reasonable, preferred and available captioning systems. The only way the CMC, NJAD, and Rainone can participate in the lawsuit or settlement negotiations with the Attorney General and Regal Cinemas is if the Court grants their request.

CMC, NJAD, and Rainone have learned that the New Jersey Attorney General will oppose their request to participate in the lawsuit against Regal Cinemas. "The State Attorney General wants to exclude us, deaf and hard of hearing individuals, from the lawsuit and negotiations that make decisions affecting us. It is paternalistic to exclude deaf and hard of hearing people on issues that affect them directly," commented Kelby Brick, NAD Director of Law and Advocacy. Brick continued, "Deaf and hard of hearing organizations and individuals want to participate in the case."

About the Coalition for Movie Captioning (CMC)

CMC is a consortium of the major national organizations of deaf or hard of hearing people. CMC addresses the theater access needs of 28 million deaf, hard of hearing, late-deafened and deaf-blind consumers. CMC’s goal is to make all first-run movies accessible to people with hearing loss. CMC’s member organizations are the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing; Association of Late-Deafened Adults; Deaf and Hard of Hearing Consumer Advocacy Network; Deaf Seniors of America; League for the Hard of Hearing; National Association of the Deaf; Self Help for Hard of Hearing People, Inc.; and Telecommunications for the Deaf, Inc.