Deaf D.C. Moviegoers Secure Rear-Window Captioning at AMC and Loews in Federal ADA Class Action

In April 2000, a class of deaf and hard-of-hearing residents of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against AMC Entertainment, Inc. and Loews Cineplex Entertainment Corp. The complaint was direct: both theater chains were screening first-run films with no captioning available to patrons who could not hear the audio, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

For deaf and hard-of-hearing moviegoers, the absence of captioning was a routine exclusion. A patron could buy a ticket and take a seat, but without access to the dialogue the experience of the film was incomplete or impossible to follow. No alternative system was offered at any AMC or Loews location in the market.

The court certified the action as a class in November 2001. When the defendants moved for summary judgment in early 2003, arguing the ADA imposed no obligation to caption movie screenings, the court rejected that argument on February 24, 2003. The ruling held that neither the ADA nor the Department of Justice's implementing regulations foreclosed requiring theater operators to provide closed captioning, particularly given that captioning technology had advanced substantially since Congress passed the statute in 1990.

Thomas Simeone of Simeone & Miller led the plaintiffs' team through nearly four years of litigation. After the summary judgment defeat for the defense, negotiations moved toward a workable technical solution. The parties settled on rear-window captioning (RWC): an LED data panel at the back of the auditorium sends caption text in reverse, and a patron who needs captions uses a small, clear acrylic panel clipped near their seat to reflect the text, making captions appear superimposed on the screen from that seat. Every other seat in the house is unaffected.

At the fairness hearing on April 1, 2004, the presiding judge noted it could serve as a model for other cities seeking to expand access for deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences. The court approved the agreement, reported at 315 F.Supp.2d 120 (D.D.C. 2004), finding it fair, adequate, and reasonable. Plaintiffs' court filings documented that the settlement delivered "greater access to captioned first-run movies than any other deaf and hard-of-hearing community in the United States."

The case drew attention in legal scholarship. The Harvard Law Review published a casenote in its March 2005 issue analyzing the settlement's implications for disability-rights law under Title III of the ADA, citing the opinion at 118 Harv. L. Rev. 1777 (2005).