MIAMI—A court has dismissed a lawsuit against Dade County FCU that had alleged the credit union violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by not having its ATMs in full compliance, and further rejected the plaintiff’s request to certify the suit as a class action.
The suit was filed by Andres Gomez who is legally blind and who alleged that when he visited a Dade Country FCU ATM approximately one mile from his home he found it lacked a functional voice-guidance feature, in violation of Title III of the ADA. Gomez alleged his attempts to use this DCFCU ATM and others all failed due to the lack of the voice-guidance system.
The court ruled that Gomez lacked standing, as he had failed to “satisfy the first element of standing” in insufficiently alleging a “real and immediate…threat of future injury.”
The threat of future injury, the court ruled, is mitigated by the fact the ATM nearest his home had since been brought into compliance with the ADA rules. Even the Gomez said he visited another ATM 16 miles from his home that he said was not in compliance with the ADA requirements, the court found he had failed to demonstrate a “concrete and realistic plan” to return to that ATM, and therefore had not sufficiently alleged a “real and immediate” threat.