Action Report Faces

Jason is a good person to start with because he is new to ADAPT and does not have a local chapter or long-time associations with ADAPT members. Jason will give us a fresh look at ADAPT. He also is a good person to start with because I will be traveling with him to the action and will get a chance to ask him just what he expects to find in Washington DC.

Jason does not have many preconceived ideas about an action, and there is no ADAPT chapter in Jackson Tennessee, so the place to start is to tell you how Jason got in touch with ADAPT.

Very simply, it was a two-foot wide door at a Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburger Restaurant in Memphis. At this Wendy's the "corral" type line is too narrow for a wheelchair to use, the bathroom has no grab-bars and the paper towels are too high; but those are problems at many Wendy's.

The doorway, which was less than 24 inches wide, however, creates an impassible barrier just as solid as a brick wall. Jason, like many people with disabilities, has developed ways to compensate for some of the common violations of the federal accessibility standards, but there was no way to get through that door.

"As big as a franchise as Wendy's is," explains Jason, "a person would think they would know the ADA code and laws."

This was a clear violation of the civil rights law: the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. Some say the law is technical and unclear, but "…a public accommodation should take measures to provide access to restroom facilities. …[F]or example, …widening of doors…" does not seem ambiguous.

This was clear to Jason as well, even though he never carries around a pocket copy of "28 C.F.R. § 36.304 (e)." What seems to make it most clear was the big yellow sign hanging out front that said "Wendy's." Worldwide, only two other hamburger establishments invite more people into their stores than Wendy's. It is that International familiarity that led Jason to believe that he would have no access problems.

The general population thinks that encountering such a clear civil rights violation means you will be swamped by slick lawyers that will propose a variety of legal strategies that will:

1. make you rich
2. punish the evil-doer
3. compensate the dutiful attorney with a reasonable stipend for their diligence

But the ADA does not provide punitive damages for individual plaintiffs. It only provides reasonable compensation for attorneys. Lawyers, at least those in Memphis, read that as: NO MONEY.

Jason already had a case in Federal Court when we sat around and called private attorneys. Jason had done the hard part. I helped him rewrite one of Steve Gold's pro se complaints and he filed it along with the waiver of fees. "We are just not prepared to handle ADA cases," was the general statement the private attorney's gave us.

"I'll be straight with you guys," said one attorney, who answered his own phone, "there just is not any money in it."

"In real life I'm an actor and a model," explains Jason, "but right now I'm stuck in Jackson." In Minneapolis Jason worked in acting and modeling, you may recognize him from ads in TARGET stores all over the U.S.

In Jackson Jason is a bill collector and part-time Disc Jockey. "That is where I try to get out some of my frustrations," said Jason, "on the air."

Memphis ADAPT helped with Jason's frustrations by surveying some of the other local Wendy's and found others with 24 inch wide doors. ADAPT complained to the US Department of Justice and asked our local Federal Attorney to do something about Wendy's.

"I'm scared of what is going on," confesses Jason. "A lot of the fear is how much control society has over me."

Jason is participating in this ADAPT action because he has decided to attack his fear. It may seem to be a stretch between a fast-food bathroom and long-term care, however, Jason is in Washington DC to confront the control society asserts over people with disabilities.

"I'm going to meet some people that struggle against the same bullshit that I do," said Jason before we got on the plane today. "I'm pissed off."

Now Jason has a private attorney and the Federal Attorney's office has just finished a survey of the 54 local Wendy's in the Memphis area. The rest of the story will be coming from Jason and Memphis ADAPT.