Fort Lauderdale, FL – Today, the Social Justice Law Collective (SJLC) announced the filing
of a federal lawsuit against the BB&T Center, a sports and entertainment
arena owned by and located in Broward County, Florida, for repeated violations of
the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation
Act. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of
Broward County residents Bradley and Susan Krause, alleges that the BB&T
Center has repeatedly discriminated against wheelchair users in connection with
the sale of accessible seating, and challenges the BB&T Center’s failure to
adopt policies to ensure that wheelchair users and their companions have an
equal opportunity to purchase tickets for accessible seating in the same manner
and under the same conditions as all other ticket sales.
Bradley Krause suffers from Inclusion
Body Myositis, a rare neuromuscular disease that causes the progressive
deterioration of muscles throughout the body and which has left Bradley
completely dependent on a motorized wheelchair in order to ambulate. While the degenerative nature of Bradley’s
condition has severely restricted his ability to engage in many of the
activities he once enjoyed, being able to attend concerts with his wife, Susan,
is one of the few activities that has remained relatively unaffected. That is, unless Bradley and Susan want to
attend a concert at the BB&T Center.
In order to attend concerts at other
arenas, Bradley and Susan typically need only go online and purchase accessible
seats for the event, at the same time and in the same manner as anyone else. For events at the BB&T Center, however,
Bradley and Susan will often attempt to purchase tickets for an event only to
find that very little – if any – accessible seating is available for
purchase. Instead, the BB&T Center
requires that Bradley and Susan purchase their tickets through other methods,
which often involve hours or days of research, telephone calls, emails, and
messages.
Moreover, even when Bradley and Susan
do manage to purchase accessible seating to an event at the BB&T Center,
they have often attended those events only to find equipment stored in areas
designated for wheelchair users or that areas of accessible seating that were
not available for purchase remain empty or filled with individuals who do not
require accessible seating. “Concerts
are one of the very few things I am still able to do in my declining health,”
Bradley said when discussing the lawsuit, “it is unconscionable for the
BB&T Center to have these events and hold that carrot out in front of me,
only to then refuse to provide me with equal access to accessible seating. I bring this lawsuit not just for myself and
Susan, but for all wheelchair users and their companions.”
“The goal of this lawsuit is simply to
ensure that wheelchair users and their companions have the same access to
tickets to popular events as anyone else in society,” said SJLC attorney Josh
Glickman, “there is simply no excuse for the BB&T Center – the largest
indoor entertainment arena in the state of Florida – to continue to enforce such
discriminatory and exclusionary policies.”
For further information please contact SJLC attorneys Josh Glickman or Shawn Heller at media@sjlawcollective.com.
