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Employees for the State filed a class action lawsuit against the State of California alleging that the State has systemically failed to provide basic accommodations for its deaf employees in violation of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act and state law. Deaf and Hard of Hearing State Workers United, an organization formed to protect the rights of employees with hearing disabilities, is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit. The employees are represented by Disability Rights Advocates, a Berkeley-based non-profit law center, and the civil rights firm Schneider Wallace Cottrell Brayton Konecky LLP, which together brought a similar, and successful, nationwide class action against United Parcel Service in 1999.
The lawsuit, which seeks no damages, is focused on making improvements to the State’s policies and procedures for handling accommodations for its deaf employees. The lawsuit alleges that the State regularly fails to fulfill interpreter requests for staff meetings, job trainings, departmental meetings, performance reviews and meetings with consumers and the public at large. The lawsuit also asserts that the State does not have adequate emergency evacuation procedures or warning lights to alert its deaf employees in the event of an emergency. The complaint, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, details problems at the Department of Rehabilitation, Department of Justice, California Public Employees Retirement System and the Department of Social Services.
Catherine Garbacz, a named plaintiff and Department of Rehabilitation employee says: “It’s incredibly frustrating to have my requests for sign language interpreters repeatedly ignored or denied. The State just doesn’t seem to understand the communication needs of its deaf employees. I’m frequently pressured to try to get by through lip-reading which is not effective in many circumstances, to get by with the help of co-workers who are not certified interpreters, or rely on passing notes. The State needs to do a better job of providing us with a workplace where we can serve our consumers and do our jobs.”
Ironically, one of the named plaintiffs, Melanie Thao Nguyen works in the Office of Deaf Access for the Department of Social Services, whose purpose is to address the communication needs of the deaf community. Ms. Nguyen has struggled to obtain accommodations that she herself needs to communicate in the workplace. Ms. Nguyen notes: “My own department has failed to provide me with sufficient regular interpreters needed to do my job. As a result, my ability to serve the deaf community at large is hampered.”
“On paper, the State recognizes the need for sign language interpreters and other forms of reasonable accommodations, but in practice, the State has no reliable systems in place to ensure that its deaf employees have effective communication with their clients, co-workers, and management,” says Laurence Paradis, Executive Director of Disability Rights Advocates and an attorney for the plaintiffs. “Particularly disturbing is the lack of adequate emergency procedures. We have had numerous reports of employees being left behind in buildings during evacuation drills and actual emergencies.”
“Our investigation reveals a systemic breakdown,” explained Joshua Konecky, another attorney for the plaintiffs. “Deaf employees describe a haphazard and patchwork environment for requesting and securing accommodations, if they get them at all, leaving a heavy burden on individual deaf employees to plead with management to recognize their legal rights.”
Another named plaintiff, Corey Brasier, who works for the State’s Attorney General’s Intelligence Operation Program, has also had his requests for sign language interpreters at staff meetings and job trainings regularly denied over the last five years.
Other barriers at issue in the case include a lack of readily available effective technology needed by deaf employees, such as videophones, to communicate with other deaf or hearing persons. Although videophones have been provided to some deaf employees, they frequently are not functioning and many deaf employees do not have access to this technology at all.
According to statistics maintained by the State Personnel Board, California employs more than 230,000 workers, and is State’s largest employer. More than 1,500 of these employees are deaf or have some other form of hearing disability.
Read the Complaint
