Everyone should read the court record, all of it. The court specifically held that the ADA did NOT apply in this case, rather it decided that the "section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act ("RA"), 29 U.S.C. § 794, et seq." was the law which may or may not apply in this case.
The court very specifically rejected all claims that the clubs and rec centers etc are subject to the issues raised by the plaintiffs.
In fact the case revolves over the use of Federal Dollars by the Charter School Corporation in its operations. The use of the Federal Dollars makes it subject to Federal regulations. The court left for a jury to decide whether the cost of sign language interpreters was an undue financial burden for the Lifelong Learning College.
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McDaniel testified that providing sign language interpreters would not be sustainable because it was cost prohibitive for the LLC and that there was not adequate availability of certified sign language interpreters. McDaniel Dep. at 50-51. As such, the Charter School Corporation has never provided certified sign language interpreters for LLC courses
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They did try using a speech to text Dragon program but it produced a useless output.
The court held that it was up to a jury to decide
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The Charter School Corporation's burden is to produce sufficient evidence that a reasonable juror could conclude that providing sign language interpreters would constitute an undue hardship
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And contradicting the claim in the paper that they did everything they could to accommodate the needs of the deaf
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Plaintiffs further assert that the Charter School Corporation had other flexible options which it refused to explore, including
(i) cost spreading over the Defendant's 500 courses or over 22,000 enrollments at a nominal amount; (ii) charging a small one time registration/user fee over all of its enrollments; (iii) applying for federal, state and private grants[;] (iv) reducing expenses[;] (v) utilizing tax breaks given for providing accommodations[;] or (vi) seeking contributions from alternate sources of funding.
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And that the cost to provide interpreters according to the defense would be
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the Charter School Corporation asserts that this would amount to a loss of $63,334.40 per year for courses filled to capacity at 12 students and $50,188.80 per year for courses half filled at six students
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Did the developer get $64,000/yr of benefit by being able to advertise the LLC as a selling point for The Villages? Could the LLC charge the Developer a $64,000 per year fee for using the name and description of that program and then redirect that advertising income to handicapped services? Seems to me like a tiny additional expense for the Morse empire and a significant loss of a marketing tool.
So there it is. Apparently the Charter School Corporation decided not to go to trial and attempt to win the case but rather closed the LLC. I don't know from the record whether that means the plaintiffs are dismissing their suit or intend to go forward seeking damages for their case. It would seem unlikely they would drop the case as then the LLC could simply reopen under the same conditions, unless of course there was also a cash settlement [speculation]