Suit Targets Access for the Disabled at Taco Bell

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August 15, 2005 latimes.com

Suit Targets Access for the Disabled at Taco Bell

By Hoffman, Times Staff Writer

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tacobell15aug15,1,3579224.story

Every week for almost two decades, Muegge walked to the Taco

Bell near his office in Santa , Calif., looking forward to his

usual lunchtime burrito.

In 2000, injuries from a long-ago car accident finally forced the

junior college teacher to use an electric scooter to get around. And

the first time Muegge rolled his scooter into his local Taco Bell for

lunch, he found the path to the counter blocked by the maze of line

dividers — metal fencing used to keep waiting lines orderly.

" It was one of the most uncomfortable public places I have been, "

recalled Muegge, who eventually — and reluctantly — cut to the front

of the line to place his order.

Muegge is now one of four lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against

Taco Bell alleging that the restaurant chain persistently violated

the federal Americans With Disabilities Act and state disability

access codes at its 220 company-owned restaurants in California. The

suit, filed in December 2002 in federal court in San Francisco, was

granted class-action status by U.S. District Judge J.

in February 2004, creating a potential pool of thousands of

plaintiffs.

Taco Bell denies the suit's allegations, saying it has made every

effort to follow the applicable laws.

" All of our restaurants comply with the ADA and state regulations, "

said Laurie Schalow, a spokeswoman for Irvine-based Taco Bell.

But the plaintiffs describe the nation's largest Mexican fast-food

chain as out of sync with basic access codes, citing what they allege

are metal line dividers that are too narrow, soft-drink stations that

are out of reach and doors that are too heavy for wheelchair users to

open.

" It was hard to want to do business again with them, " said plaintiff

Corbett, recalling the day in 2002 when she and her

daughter Mitsuko, both in wheelchairs, visited a Taco Bell in

Richmond. The pair had to wait off to the side until someone at the

counter noticed them, Corbett said, and then had to eat at separate

tables, divided by the fixed plastic seating.

When they left, Corbett recalled, Mitsuko turned to her and said: " I

don't like this. It isn't fair. "

Such complaints aren't new to Taco Bell. In 2000, the company settled

a similar lawsuit in Colorado, agreeing to modify the 40 company-

owned restaurants in the state by the end of 2001 and ensure that all

new restaurants it opened in Colorado would comply with accessibility

requirements.

Tim Fox, the Denver lawyer who was lead counsel in the Colorado case,

said that after the settlement, he began hearing similar complaints

about Taco Bell restaurants in California. Joined by wife and law

partner Amy on and a cadre of Bay Area civil rights lawyers,

Fox decided to sue in an effort to force Taco Bell to make its

California restaurants more accessible to disabled customers.

California is one of a handful of states that allow disabled

customers to seek sizable monetary damages from businesses that are

found to violate the state's disability-access codes. Fox said the

plaintiffs were seeking $4,000 in damages for each visit by an

individual using a wheelchair or scooter to a company-owned Taco Bell

restaurant in California since Dec. 17, 2001. (The more than 500

franchisee-owned Taco Bells in California aren't included in the

suit.)

Oakland attorney Brad Seligman joined the case against Taco Bell as a

co-counsel early last year. Almost a decade ago, Seligman reached a

settlement with United Artists Theatres in which the company agreed

to pay $500,000 in damages, still considered one of the largest

settlements in an ADA case. He is lead counsel in a high-profile

class-action sexual discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores

Inc.

" What attracted me was the size of the case, the potential for

damages and the fact that Taco Bell has been a recidivist, " said

Seligman, whose nonprofit civil rights fund had given a grant to Fox

to pursue the Colorado case.

Taco Bell, owned by Yum Brands Inc., the Louisville, Ky., dining

conglomerate that also owns the KFC and Pizza Hut chains, contends

that it hasn't broken any laws and that access for all customers is a

priority.

For now, the two sides have adopted a cooperative approach, agreeing

to have court-appointed inspector Bob , an accessibility

consultant from San Diego, evaluate how each of the California

restaurants complies with more than 600 structural issues that can

affect disabled customers.

The two parties will then spend the next few months in pretrial

discussions looking at the compliance reports and discussing what

changes, if any, need to be made. Once the accessibility questions

are decided, they will turn to the more controversial question of

damages. If the two sides fail to reach an agreement, the case is set

to go to trial next year.

The Americans With Disabilities Act, passed in 1990, outlaws

discrimination against people with disabilities and sets out detailed

guidelines for making public places accessible for them.

The law currently allows disabled individuals to file suit whenever

they encounter a possible violation. But in the last year there have

been attempts to introduce legislation that would allow businesses as

many as 90 days to correct violations before a lawsuit could be

filed.

The National Restaurant Assn. has signaled its support for such

legislation, arguing in a statement for " a cooperative and more

sensible approach " that would give restaurant owners time to modify

their restaurants before a suit is filed.

Line dividers, a key complaint in the Taco Bell case, have been a

particular source of trouble for the fast-food industry under the

law. In 1998, 's International Inc. agreed to remove or modify

line dividers in all of its restaurants to settle a lawsuit filed by

the Justice Department.

" At the time, we went back to all our existing store locations and

made sure that any barriers to access were removed, " said Bob

Bertini, a spokesman for 's, which operates more than 6,600

restaurants.

Schalow, the Taco Bell spokeswoman, said the line dividers were legal

and vital to handling a high volume of customers, although she said

most of the company's newer restaurants would use a single, one-

directional rail to direct traffic. In any case, she said, customers

who can't negotiate the line dividers always have the option to leave

the line and go directly to the counter.

The courts apparently have never definitively ruled on the issue of

line dividers, although the Justice Department, which enforces the

disabilities act, filed a brief in the Colorado case arguing that it

was unacceptable to require disabled customers to cut in line.

" It is really, really embarrassing, " Muegge said of the line

dividers. " You are standing out and that is something we don't like.

We want to just flow through with everyone else. "