Articles
This page has short summaries of every article posted on Lainey Feingold's website with links to the full articles. Visit the Topics Page for all 300 plus articles on this website organized into 38 topics including Structured Negotiation and digital accessibility.
The articles here are in chronological order, arranged by the date of publication or the date of the most recent Update when an article has been updated. Most recent articles and updated articles appear first on this list.
When an Article is updated there is a link to the Updates right below the the summary of the page.
Congratulations CVS and the American Council of the Blind! Today CVS and ACB announced, in the press release posted here, the availability of talking prescription labels in every CVS Pharmacy location in the United States. This announcement resulted from a collaborative effort using Structured Negotiation. CVS’ talking prescription program is called Spoken Rx. Spoken Rx adds…
Read more… CVS Spoken Rx November 2021 Press Release
Congratulations to CVS and the American Council of the Blind. Posted here is the talking prescription label settlement agreement reached by ACB, CVS, and an individual CVS customer. The agreement describes the nation’s first in-app talking label technology offered by a major pharmacy. It is available in every CVS location in the United States. The…
Read more… CVS Spoken Rx Settlement Agreement
Posted here is the digital accessibility settlement agreement that communications company Discord reached with the American Council of the Blind. The agreement is designed to ensure that Discord’s public-facing website and mobile application are available to people with and without disabilities.Discord will use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 AA as part of its accessibility program.
Read more… Discord Digital Accessibiity Settlement Agreement
On October 12, 2021 a United States federal judge in Maryland ruled that Walmart does not have to make its self-check kiosks accessible to blind shoppers. This is a disappointing result in a case that started when a Walmart employee stole $40.00 from two blind shoppers while the employee was assisting them with the inaccessible self-check kiosk.
Read more… U.S. Federal Judge Rules for Walmart, against Blind Shoppers, in Self-checkout Kiosk Case
This post is part of an occasional series about recent legal developments impacting technology and information access for people with disabilities. This post covers activity from August 11, 2015 through December 10, 2015. This update includes Department of Justice activity, the settlement of cases against Scribd and the General Services Administration, Structured Negotiation with Humana, an important new voting rights case, and other developments.
Read more… Digital Accessibility Legal Update (December 2015)
The Bank One Press Release posted here was issued as a result of an initial settlement agreement that Bank One signed with Chicago blind activists Kelly Pierce and Anna Byrne using Structured Negotiations instead of litigation. In the 2001 Bank One Preliminary Settlement Agreement, the bank agreed to install Talking ATMs at 130 locations, making it the first bank with Talking ATMs in Illinois and Ohio. Two years later, the bank signed a comprehensive agreement providing for additional Talking ATMs, an alternative format policy, and an accessible web site.
Read more… Bank One Preliminary Talking ATM Press Release
This post is one in an ongoing series on the history of the advocacy and technology behind Talking ATMs. A short summary of all articles in this series is available by selecting the Talking ATM History link on the Categories Page of this website. In this post you can read about early Massachusetts Talking ATM advocacy and Talking ATM efforts in Chicago and the Midwest.
Read more… Talking ATM History: Early Structured Negotiations in New England and the Midwest
On August 17, 2021 judges in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld sanctions against a Florida lawyer (Scott Dinin) and his client (Alexander Johnson) because of unethical conduct in cases brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and similar Florida law. Sanctions are a way that a court can punish lawyers and clients for bad behavior. In this case the sanctions included requiring Johnson and Dinin to pay money to a disability-based nonprofit or the court and preventing them from filing ADA cases without the court’s permission.
Read more… U.S. Federal Appeals Court Slams Unethical ADA Practice
The Settlement Agreement about Accessible Pedestrian Signals with the City and County of San Francisco was the first in the country to address this critical pedestrian safety issue. The agreement, in which the City agreed to spend at least 1.6 million dollars and install APS at at least 80 intersections, was negotiated by Lainey and co-counsel Linda Dardarian using Structured Negotiations. Claimants in the case were the California Council of the Blind, the San Francisco based LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, the Independent Living Resource Center San Francisco, and blind advocate Damien Pickering. As exhibits to the Settlement Agreement, the parties negotiated Technical Specifications and a detailed tool to help public entities prioritize intersections for APS installation. Contact us if you would like a copy of the tool.
Read more… San Francisco APS Agreement
The United States Access Board is currently considering proposed changes to the ADA Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG) that would require certain self-service kiosks to be accessible to people with disabilities. Based on their experience with Talking ATMs and tactile point of sale devices, the Law Office of Lainey Feingold and Linda Dardarian of Goldstein, Demchak, Baller, Borgen & Dardarian, prepared comments on the Board’s proposal for use by persons interested in accessible devices. Those comments, all or parts of which were incorporated into submissions filed with the Board by several organizations, are posted here.
Read more… Access Board Considers ADAAG Coverage for Self-Service Kiosks
