McCullum v. Orlando Reg’l Healthcare Sys. Inc. (Summary)

ADA COMPLIANCE

McCullum v. Orlando Reg’l Healthcare Sys. Inc., No. 13-12118 (11th Cir. Oct. 3, 2014)

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal/summary judgment of several discrimination claims brought by the parents of a deaf son, individually and on behalf of their son. The parents had claimed that they and their daughter were discriminated against, by association, when the hospital defendants relied on them to provide interpretation services to their son, rather than obtaining a professional interpreter. Further, they claimed their son suffered direct discrimination due to the hospitals’ failure to provide an interpreter. Though health care workers used several communication tactics to help the 14-year-old patient understand his care, including written explanations, pictorial and skill demonstration, books, literature aimed specifically for children, and even an ostomy doll, the parents claimed that their son suffered discrimination and was not able to properly communicate with physicians and other medical staff as a result of the hospitals’ failure to provide an interpreter.

The trial court dismissed the claims of the parents and sister, holding that they had no standing to sue since they had not been directly excluded or denied access to the hospital. The court granted summary judgment to the hospitals on the patient’s claim for an injunction, finding that claim to be too speculative, since there was no evidence that the patient would be likely to need hospital services at any time in the near future or that the hospitals would deny him an interpreter now that they knew he would prefer to have one. The court also granted summary judgment on the patient’s claims for damages, holding that there was not sufficient evidence to show that the hospitals acted with deliberate indifference toward the patient’s disability. Rather, the evidence showed that neither hospital was ever informed that the patient would like to have the services of an interpreter and, further, both hospitals took steps to accommodate the patient’s disability with both believing that they were communicating effectively with the patient. For these same reasons, on appeal, the court affirmed the lower court’s holdings.