News

ADA lawsuits sting Pittsburgh-area banks

April 24, 2012

A little more than a month after new Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines for ATMs took effect, the lawsuits are beginning to roll in.

According to an article by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a Pittsburgh-area man has filed federal lawsuits against at least seven banks claiming that they don't conform to audio requirements.

Attorney Bruce Carlson, who filed the suits on behalf of Robert Jahoda, told the Post-Gazette, “Many large banks enacted voice enabling [in their ATMs] well in advance of the formal effective date of the law,” and those that didn’t should be compelled to do so, he said.

Neil D. Bassi, president of Charleroi Federal, one of the banks being sued, said the bank had hired vendors to make the changes needed for voice enabling. However, in an email to the Post-Gazette, he said that “overwhelming demand” for the services pushed the completion date to the end of April.

Meanwhile in Boston …

A Boston Globe report said Consumer World, a consumer website in Boston, found that one-quarter of the 136 ATMs it tested at 84 locations in the Boston area did not provide audio services to the blind via a headphone jack.

“It is not an acceptable solution or accommodation for a blind person to have to try to find and rely on a friend, stranger, or colleague to read information from kiosks or ATM screens,’’ Mika Pyyhkala, president of the Massachusetts chapter of the National Federation of the Blind told The Globe. 

For more on this topic, visit our ADA compliance research center.