By Lee Dryden
BridgeTower Media Newswires
DETROIT — A blind woman sued two credit unions for inaccessible websites, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that she did not suffer an injury.
In Brintley v. Aeroquip Credit Union, the federal circuit panel reversed the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit.
Karla Brintley sued Aeroquip and Belle River Community Credit Union under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Sixth Circuit determined that she never suffered an Article III injury because she “lacks eligibility under state law to join either credit union and her complaint does not convey any interest in becoming eligible to do so.”
Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton wrote the opinion, joined by Senior Judge Ronald Lee Gilman and Judge Helene N. White. White delivered a separate concurring opinion.
To navigate the internet, Brintley uses a screen reader that scans webpages and narrates their contents.
“The technology remains in its infancy. It struggles with some material, especially pictures and video unaccompanied by alternative text. With some effort, companies can make their websites fully screen-reader compatible. But not all companies have taken that step,” the opinion stated.
The plaintiff tried to browse the defendant credit unions’ websites a few times, but her screen reader was unable to process some of the content. As an acknowledged “tester” of website compliance with the ADA, Brintley sued in federal court under the act and its Michigan state-law counterpart.
“She sought compensatory and injunctive relief on the theory that the websites were a ‘service’ offered through a ‘place of public accommodation,’ entitling her to the ‘full and equal enjoyment’ of the websites,” the opinion stated.
The credit unions argued that Brintley failed to satisfy Article III standing, but the district court rejected the motions to dismiss the claims.
Citing Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife (1992), the panel stated that to meet the “irreducible constitutional minimum,” Brintley must show that she sustained an injury in fact, that she can trace the injury to the credit unions’ conduct, and that a decision in her favor would redress the injury.
Brintley’s case turns on injury in fact, as she must show an invasion of a “legally protected interest” that is both “concrete and particularized” and “actual or imminent,” the panel stated, adding that not only must her injury be “real,” but it also must affect her in some “personal and individual way.”
“The credit unions did not injure Brintley. The key problem is that state law barred her from receiving any of the credit unions’ financial services. Under Michigan law, domestic credit unions may assist only those falling within a narrow ‘field of membership’ based on one or more ‘common bonds,’” the opinion stated. “What are common bonds? Think shared community interests like a common occupation, a common religious identity, or a common place of residence. Brintley isn’t within any of these fields of membership, and her complaint never says that she plans to change that reality any time soon.”
While Brintley stated she wants to use the credit unions’ banking services, her amended complaint does not contain “concrete plans” that could elevate her intent into an injury a federal court could hear, according to the opinion.
“There is no indication, for instance, that she has any plan to move to St. Clair County (to become eligible for Belle River Community Credit Union) or to apply for a job at Aeroquip Corporation (to become eligible for Aeroquip Credit Union),” the panel stated.
Brintley cannot bring an ADA claim “just as a sighted individual with no inclination to join a union could not raise, say, an Age Discrimination in Employment Act claim about a credit union’s hypothetical age-based membership policies,” the opinion stated.
The plaintiff argued that the websites offer an “array of services,” such as facility locators and financial calculators, and questioned how such information could “not be useful” to a non-member.
“We can think of a few answers,” the court stated. “Perhaps she had no desire to use these tools anyway. Perhaps she had no reason to care about their results. Perhaps they duplicate information elsewhere online. More to the point, Brintley’s question isn’t for us to answer. She had the burden to allege some real interest in the information. Failing to do so deprives us of power over the matter.”
The court added, “The internet is a vast and often unpleasant place. It contains plenty that may offend, and those who set out looking for dignitary slights won’t be disappointed. But merely browsing the web, without more, isn’t enough to satisfy Article III.
And whatever that ‘more’ may entail, Brintley doesn’t have it.”
White concurred in the reversal and wrote separately “to make clear that my concurrence is based only on Brintley’s failure to sufficiently allege that the websites contained information or services that she could use, and not on the proposition that a non-member or non-eligible person is per se unable to challenge the accessibility of a credit union’s website.”
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