Netflix did not violate ADA because websites are not public accommodations under Ninth Circuit law — Cullen v. Netflix, Inc., 2012 WL 2906245 (N.D. Cal. July 13, 2012)
Several weeks ago, I posted a blog entry about a Massachusetts case holding that Netflix violated the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) by failing to close-caption all of its streamed video content. A California federal court recently ruled the opposite way.
As in the Massachusetts case, Cullen is based on the limited availability of closed-caption content in Netflix’s streaming library. Cullen, the plaintiff, alleged in his class action lawsuit that Netflix failed to make good on promises to expand the number of closed-captioned titles it would offer to subscribers of its streaming service. Cullen originally included an ADA claim in his lawsuit, but dropped the claim after being assured by the National Association of the Deaf and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice that the ADA claim would be pursued in a separate case (i.e., the Massachusetts case that I previously blogged about). Instead, the ADA issue comes up in a roundabout way–Cullen asserted a claim for violation of California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act. The claim was based in part on ADA violations because a violation of the ADA is by definition a violation of the Unruh Act. The court therefore analyzed whether the ADA was violated.
The court took note of the recent Massachusetts decision. However, under Ninth Circuit law, a “place of public accommodation” under the ADA is limited to “an actual physical place.” The court cites a string of precedent flowing from the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Weyer v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., 198 F.3d 1104 (9th Cir. 2000), holding that websites are not places of public accommodations under the ADA because they are not actual physical places. Based on those cases, the court ruled that the Netflix website is not a place of public accommodation. That meant that Cullen’s Unruh Act claim did not survive to the extent it relied on violations of the ADA.
Cullen also alleged violations of the Unruh Act independent of the ADA, as well as violations of other California statutes, but none of them fared well. The court granted Netflix’s motion dismiss but gave Cullen a chance to amend his complaint.