DOJ States Blood Plasma Donation Centers are Public Accommodations under ADA
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The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has submitted a Statement of Interest to address an important issue raised in a Plaintiff’s motion for partial summary judgment regarding whether blood plasma donation centers are “public accommodations” under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). It is the DOJ opinion that blood plasma donation centers are public accommodations under Title III of the ADA.
Plaintiff Mark Gomez, who is deaf, sued Defendant CSL Plasma, Inc., in April 2020 alleging that Defendant violated the ADA by refusing to provide him an American Sign Language interpreter, making it impossible for him to donate plasma at Defendant’s plasma donation center. Defendant denies that it is a service establishment.
According to the DOJ opinion, the plain meaning of the term “service establishment” in 42 U.S.C. § 12181(7)(F) encompasses plasma donation centers because plasma donation centers are “establishments” that provide a “service.” Plasma donation centers are therefore public accommodations under Title III of the ADA. Furthermore, under any ordinary definition of the term, the act of collecting plasma constitutes a “service.”
The legislative history of the ADA makes clear that Congress intended for courts to construe the categories of public accommodations listed in Title III “liberally to afford people with disabilities equal access to the wide variety of establishments” available to people without disabilities.
The Defendant has not yet responded to the Plaintiff’s motion for partial summary judgment, but in its answer to the complaint the Defendant denies that it is a service establishment.
SUMMARY: The DOJ has submitted a Statement of Interest to a case regarding accessibility at blood plasma donation centers. If the DOJ opinion prevails, these centers will be required to comply with the ADA not only for sign language interpreters, but also for all other issues regarding ADA compliance.
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