US organisations liable under UK law?
Until recently, it was assumed that the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) only applied to organisations, and web sites, within the UK. However, a recent successful complaint brought under the DDA might just change that assumption.
Visually impaired Sam Latif, who works as an IT Project Manager with Proctor & Gamble, decided to study for a Project Management Professional (PMP) qualification, the most widely-recognised certification in project management in the world. The PMP is managed by the Project Management Institute (PMI), a not-for-profit corporation based in the US.
Sam initially struggled with the electronic course material (supplied in both PDF and Word format) as neither was usable with JAWS and ended up paying a student to work six hours a week for her, reading the material aloud so that Sam could transcribe the material herself. However, the real problems started when she tried to sit the examination.
Initially Sam asked to use her own laptop - complete with a copy of JAWS - during the exam. Her request was refused on the grounds that PMI did not permit people to take electronic devices in the testing centre. so Sam asked if she could install a copy of JAWS on one of the exam centre’s computers. This was also refused. Eventually Sam sat the exam by using a reader (someone who could read material aloud and explain diagrams etc.) and a process involving reading, note-taking and transcription of answers. It took her over eight hours to complete the examination.
She passed but, upset and angry at her treatment, she decided to register a complaint under DDA.
The PMI initially claimed that as an American organisation, UK law did not apply to them. But a pre-hearing review ruled otherwise. Because they were providing a course and qualification in the UK, DDA did apply. The Employment Tribunal later ruled that the test centre commissioned by PMI could have loaded the exam onto one of its own stand-alone computers with JAWS installed and the questions in Word format, without risk of cheating. Given that Sam runs JAWS so that it reads text 60% faster than a human voice, she would then have been able to complete the exam in significantly less time than the eight hours that it took with a human reader. The Tribunal concluded that PMI had not proven that they had taken reasonable steps to prevent Sam from being put at a substantial disadvantage as a result of her disability.
On 19th October 2006, PMI was ordered to pay compensation of £3,000.
Full details of the case can be found on the Out-law.com web site