On April 25, 2016, three individuals that were blind and enrolled in the BarBri bar exam preparation course filed this putative class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. The plaintiffs brought this suit against BarBri Inc., aka BarBri Bar Review, a company that sells and provides products for bar exam preparation. The plaintiffs alleged that BarBri violated the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Texas Human Resource Code § 121.002-.003. The plaintiffs, represented by Texas Civil Rights Project and Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights/Urban Affairs, sought injunctive, monetary, and declaratory relief as well as attorneys’ fees and costs. This case was assigned to Magistrate Judge Renee Harris Toliver.
The three plaintiffs were all enrolled in the BarBri bar preparation course and relied on BarBri to prepare for the bar examination. The plaintiffs used Job Access With Speech (“JAWS”) screen readers to access the internet through their computer as well as programs on their cell phone. The BarBri bar preparation course provided a plethora of bar review resources on its websites. For example, BarBri provided online live chat to match BarBri students with tutors, an online planner, study outlines, online lecture notes, online lecture videos, and many more resources. The website, however, was not compatible with the software that the plaintiffs relied on to access the internet. The plaintiffs requested reasonable accommodation, but BarBri did not provide them.
On July 1, 2016, the defendant moved to dismiss the lawsuit for lack of jurisdiction and failure to state a claim. The plaintiff amended their complaint on July 19, 2016. This new complaint added more factual allegations and slightly modified the definition of the sought class. The amended class definition was as follows: “All legally blind individuals nationwide who, on or after April 25, 2014, took, plan to take or attempted to take a BarBri bar review course at a time when BarBri’s website, mobile application, or other course materials was or is not fully accessible to legally blind students, or who have been discouraged from taking the BarBri bar review course due to such inaccessibility.”
The defendant again moved to dismiss the lawsuit for lack of jurisdiction and failure to state a claim on October 3, 2016. The plaintiffs moved to certify a class on February 10, 2017. The court never ruled on this motion.
In October 2017, the parties underwent settlement discussions. Eventually the parties reached a confidential Settlement Agreement. Then on January 19, 2018, the parties jointly moved for a stipulation of dismissal and sought approval of a consent decree.
Three days later, the court approved the parties’ consent decree. This consent decree was pertinent only to injunctive relief. The parties agreed that the court would retain jurisdiction for three years to ensure compliance with this decree. The consent decree prohibited the defendant from engaging in disability discrimination, required the defendant to comply with the ADA, and required the defendant to undergo an accessibility audit to ensure that all accessibility barriers for screen readers were removed. The defendant also agreed to provide accessibility training to all development team employees and to reform its procedures for implementing reasonable accommodations when students request accommodations.
Given that the consent decree was approved in 2018, and that the decree lasts for three years, this case is ongoing.
Sean Whetstone - 07/02/2018
compress summary
