After breezing through those claims, the magistrate takes a little more time with the ADA claim. The plaintiff is dyslexic. The magistrate summarizes his contention: "he alleges those Defendants discriminated against him based on his reading disability, and deprived him of access to their internet services and their "online theater" - a "place of public accommodation" governed by the ADA."
Citing the AccessNow v. Southwest Airlines case, the magistrate says "an internet website, by itself, is not an actual place, or a physical, concrete structure that would qualify as a place of public accommodation under the ADA." Similar to the discussion in yesterday's Young v. Facebook ruling, the magistrate responded:
His allegations fail to identify any actual, physical place where Defendants' services are made available, and fail to assert any connection between the internet websites he sought to access, and any actual, physical structure or facility through which Defendants' services could be accessed or provided. To the contrary, Ouellette alleges only that Defendants' conduct has impeded his access to certain internet websites
In approving the magistrate report,
the judge rejects the plaintiff's objection that a website's servers are the requisite physical place:
Neither a website nor its servers are "actual, physical places where goods or services are open to the public," putting them within the ambit of the ADA. Weyer v. Twentieth Cent. Fox Film Corp., 198 F.3d 1104, 1114 (9th Cir.2000). The public access production facility might amount to such a place, but there is no nexus between the websites and Ouellette's inability to access that physical place.
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