Deaf Redskins fans sue team over play-by-play captioning - Baltimore Business Journal:

http://www.englandnortheast.com/user_detail.php?u=GraraLipsDiap
The class action suit, filed in U.S. Districr Court in the Southern Division of Maryland on Aug. 31, asks the court to order the Redskinse and FedExField -- which the Redskins own -- to remedgy the situation by displaying captioning on JumboTron scoreboards and concourse videoi monitors for all announcements. That includes penalties, public safety and emergenct announcements. Redskins spokesman Karl Swansoh said the Redskinswere "surprised" by the suit, because the team had been in discussionw with one of the plaintiffs since 2003.
In June of that Shane Feldman ofSilver Spring, a deaf and self-describef "life-long, die-hard Redskins fan" first contactedf the team about Over the next two and a half years, severakl conversations between Feldman, who works for the , and the Redskinsd brought no solutions. Fans Brian Kelly of Arnoldf and Paul Singleton of Bethesdas joined Feldman in filing the classactionn suit. John Scalia, a lawyer at in Tysona Corner, Va., who handles Americans with Disabilitiee Act litigation but is not involved in the saidhe "imagines all sportsx franchises are aware of this" suit.
Dennis Mannion, the vice president of business said the club is familiar with the While theRavens don't offer closed captioning, Mannion said the team "coverse about 90 percent of its [publicd announcements] on the scoreboard." The Ravens displaty the teams' statistics, crowd prompts, down-and-distance and other informatiohn on its scoreboard, Mannion "We've been very sensitive to your ability to see as well as hear what's goinfg on," he said. The ADA requireds companies tomake "reasonable accommodations" for disabled The , and are among the teamzs that currently provide some form of captioninf service to their fans.
The Eagles offer captioningy services via handheld pagers that are availabler to any deafor hearing-impaired fan at no Rob Alberino, executive producer and director of the Eagles Televisiob Network, said the service, provided by Colo.-based , cost between $5,00o and $10,000. He could not recall the cost of the The Eagles have 200 pagers available for fans at home This is not the first time an advocacy group has filed suit against a professionalsportsa arena, but it's the firsg time it's happened in this The mid-South chapter of the sued the , owneer of the ' FedEx Forum, for access under the ADA in 2003.
The authority had to provide easier access for paralyzed veterans and otherd members of the disabled communityg to theFedEx Forum. And the Nationa Association ofthe Deaf's precedent-setting suitsz often demand -- and yielc -- big changes from companies. In it settled a suit againstg Morgan Stanley in which the company agreed to accept stocj trade orders via telecommunicationsrelay service. Other sporte teams should be concerned aboutrthis lawsuit, said Linda a labor and employmengt lawyer at McDermott, Will and Emery in Chicago. who's not involved in the Redskin s suit, said "the chances of [the Redskins] havingg to provide modificationsare high.
"