Today a court ruled in favor of Disney in a case involving the parents of autistic children and young adults with autism that accused the company’s theme parks of not meeting the standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The case stems from changes made in 2014 that saw Disney move from the long-time Guest Assistance Card (GAC) program to a new program known as Disability Access Service (DAS). Some guests complained that the changes failed to address the needs of those with autism and 16 of them filed a lawsuit against Disney.
U.S. District Judge Anne Conway has decided that a lawsuit against Disney regarding the DAS program for guests with disabilities has no merit. The judge declared a summary judgment in Disney’s favor preventing the case from going to trial. She also ordered the plaintiff in the case to pay Disney’s legal costs.
The judge pointed out that nondisabled guests visit Magic Kingdom for rides and attractions that most of them have to wait more than an hour to experience. Comparing this to Plaintiff’s experience, DAS and readmission passes allow him access to those same rides in a fraction of the time. The judge also pointed out that nondisabled guests will inevitably have to wait to experience an attraction regardless of the order they choose to visit them. Thus, DAS and readmission passes afford Plaintiff a similar, or better, experience as those not needing them.
The ADA does not require Defendant to accommodate Plaintiff’s preference to browse its parks in a specific order. The judge said that the death-knell in the plaintiff’s argument was that the Plaintiff claimed that with the current program, he could not experience all of the attractions he wanted to. But based on the December 19, 2013 wait time report, he could have ridden any of the rides on his preferred list using DAS and the remaining readmission passes.
Andy Dogali, the lawyer for the Plaintiff, told Deadline, “The opinion is unsound, and we continue to evaluate our options.”
While this case was originally part of one larger one, Judge Conway decided in 2014 to split each case into individual matters.