Sunderland v. Bethesda Health, Inc. — May 2016 (Summary)

ADA – TITLE III

Sunderland v. Bethesda Health, Inc.
No. 13-80685-CIV-HURLEY (S.D. Fla. May 11, 2016)

The United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida granted a hospital’s motion for summary judgment in a suit seeking, among other things, injunctive relief brought by former patients who were hearing disabled.  The patients claimed that the hospital “failed to provide interpreting services adequate to ensure effective communication with them during each of their respective hospital stays, and that this lack of effective communication violated their rights under Title III of the [ADA]…and section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973….”

The patients argued that the hospital excluded them from, or denied them the benefits of, “the hospital’s services or programs by failing to provide live, on-site [American Sign Language] interpreter services after plaintiffs expressed dissatisfaction with the efficacy of [the hospital’s Video Remote Interpreting Computer on Wheels] and a preference for live, on-site interpreters.”  According to the court, there was sufficient evidence presented to create a genuine issue of fact that the hospital’s “default reliance on VRI as an auxiliary aid resulted in patient comprehension failures – known to hospital staff – and corresponding impediments to each patient’s ability to meaningfully understand and participate in his or her own course of medical treatment.”  Nonetheless, the court concluded that the patients did not have standing to seek injunctive relief because they could not “show the existence of a ‘real and immediate’ threat of future hospitalization at a [hospital] facility.”